POLITECNICO DI MILANO

Management Engineering Department

A Neuromarketing research:
investigating consumers’ self-declared and
biometric emotional responses to products

Supervisor: Prof. Lucio Lamberti

Co-supervisor: Dott.ssa Debora Bettiga

Master Thesis by:

Caterina Molin 836371
Giulia Erika Radice 835565

Academic year 2015/2016

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Ringraziamenti
Vorremmo ringraziare tutti coloro che in questi mesi ci hanno aiutate a portare a termine questo
progetto di tesi.
Il primo grazie va al Professor Lucio Lamberti per averci proposto questo lavoro e averci sempre dato
spunti interessanti.
Grazie alla Dottoressa Debora Bettiga per il supporto costante e per la professionalità.
Ringraziamo anche i nostri nuovi colleghi di Ingegneria Biomedica Riccardo Lolatto e la Dottoressa
Giulia Tacchino, con cui abbiamo collaborato e che hanno condiviso con noi ogni momento in
laboratorio.
Il nostro progetto non sarebbe stato possibile senza amici, conoscenti e colleghi che si sono offerti
volontari come soggetti di studio. Grazie per essere stati pazienti e averci dedicato il vostro tempo.
Infine, grazie a tutti coloro che hanno compilato il questionario online: il piccolo contributo di
ciascuno di voi è stato di fondamentale importanza.

Caterina e Giulia

3
4
Vorrei dedicare questi ringraziamenti a tutte le persone che mi hanno sostenuta in questi cinque
anni di formazione accademica e maturazione personale. Non sapendo da chi cominciare, mi rendo
solo ora conto di quanto fortunata io sia stata ad avere così tante persone accanto, che mai mi
hanno fatta sentire sola.

Da qualche parte bisogna pur iniziare, e non ci sono persone migliori delle mie più care amiche per
farlo: grazie Viola, grazie Rebecca, grazie Fabiana, grazie Ilaria, grazie Marta. Vi meritate un
ringraziamento speciale perché siete state più delle sorelle che delle amiche.

Grazie poi a Viola B., con cui condivido interessi e giornate di studio da ormai otto anni.

Ringrazio anche i miei amici di Legnano, con cui trascorro i miei momenti di svago da una decina
d’anni; in particolare il mio migliore amico Davide, che ha il grande dono di far ridere chiunque ne
abbia bisogno, ma allo stesso tempo di ascoltare come nessun altro sa fare.

Ringrazio tutta la mia famiglia allargata che vive in Veneto, luogo in cui ho spesso trovato rifugio e
una seconda casa, merito soprattutto di mia zia Elena, dei miei cugini (ma quasi fratelli) Nicolò e
Matteo e di tutti gli amici che con il tempo ho trovato e che mi hanno sempre accolta come se non
avessimo mai smesso di vederci.

Un enorme ringraziamento va anche a tutti, nessuno escluso, quelli che ho conosciuto al
Politecnico di Milano: da quelli con cui ho fatto lavori di gruppo a coloro che hanno lasciato
l’università durante questo lungo percorso, perché in fondo siamo sempre stati una grande
famiglia.

Grazie alla mia compagna di tesi Giulia, che mi ha dato manforte in questi ultimi, intensi mesi.

Non avrei potuto reggere il peso di tutte le lezioni, delle sessioni d’esame, degli interi mesi passati
sui libri senza trovare delle fantastiche persone che mi hanno sopportata, abbracciata, dato
sempre un motivo per cui ridere, in cui ho trovato non solo gli individui più intelligenti che abbia
mai conosciuto, ma anche dei compagni di avventura grandiosi. Grazie quindi a Matteo,
Alessandro, Federico, Giordano, Ilaria, e Riccardo. I momenti che porterò sempre nel cuore sono le
risate che abbiamo condiviso insieme, le vacanze, le serate, i compleanni a casa mia.

Tra questi c’è anche una persona speciale che merita una menzione a parte. Oltre che essere stato
un compagno di università, è un amico e un grande amore. Grazie ad Eugenio che, comunque vada
a finire, è stato per me un punto di riferimento in questi anni e un esempio da seguire, una persona
meritevole della mia stima e del mio affetto.

Ultima ma non da meno, vorrei ringraziare mia mamma, per avermi sempre sostenuta nelle scelte
e nelle difficoltà di questi anni, sia moralmente che con gesti quotidiani. Ti voglio bene.

Caterina

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6
 Per questi cinque anni di vita universitaria,
il mio grazie più profondo va a Lei
per il sostegno quotidiano
e a Voi
che da sempre credete in me
prima e più di quanto faccia io.
Il mio grazie più sentito va a Lui
per avermi insegnato a vivere al meglio proprio questi anni.
Grazie anche alla mia compagna di lavoro
e sempre più amica,
per aver condiviso con me questa ultima sfida,
per avermi sempre capita ed essere stata capace di assecondarmi
e per aver trasformato ogni momento
in un’occasione di condivisione.

Giulia

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Table of contents
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 15

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................ 18

2.1 NEUROMARKETING ....................................................................................................... 18
2.1.1 Origin ................................................................................................................ 19
2.1.2 Evolution and studies ........................................................................................ 19
2.1.3 Applications ....................................................................................................... 21
2.2 NEUROMARKETING FOR THE STUDY OF PRODUCT RESPONSES ............................................... 22
2.2.1 Emotions and attitude ....................................................................................... 22
2.2.2 Products ............................................................................................................ 27
2.3 METHODS AND INSTRUMENTS ........................................................................................ 27
2.3.1 Methods ............................................................................................................ 28
2.3.2 Instruments ....................................................................................................... 29

3 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................... 33

3.1 OUR STARTING POINT .................................................................................................... 33
3.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................... 34
3.3 VARIABLES INVESTIGATED BY OUR RESEARCH ..................................................................... 34

4 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 35
4.1 QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................... 35
4.2 LAB EXPERIMENT .......................................................................................................... 36
4.2.1 Sampling ........................................................................................................... 37
4.2.2 Tools used ......................................................................................................... 37
4.2.3 Tools preparation .............................................................................................. 38
4.2.4 Experiment flow ................................................................................................ 39
4.3 ONLINE SURVEY ............................................................................................................ 40
4.3.1 Sampling ........................................................................................................... 40

5 DATA ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................ 41

5.1 LAB EXPERIMENT .......................................................................................................... 42
5.1.1 Preliminary analysis .......................................................................................... 42

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 5.1.2 Core analysis: correlation between biometric and survey data ........................ 46
5.2 ONLINE SURVEY ............................................................................................................ 49
5.2.1 Preliminary analysis .......................................................................................... 49
5.2.2 Core analyses .................................................................................................... 50

6 DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................. 63

6.1 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................................................. 63
6.2 IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................................. 65
6.2.1 Theoretical implications .................................................................................... 65
6.2.2 Methodological implications ............................................................................. 65
6.2.3 Managerial implications ................................................................................... 66

7 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS .......................................................................................... 67

8 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 71

9 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ 77
9.1 APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................. 77
9.1.1 Marketing Instruments ..................................................................................... 77
9.1.2 Biometric instruments ....................................................................................... 79
9.2 APPENDIX B ................................................................................................................. 83
9.2.1 Products tested ................................................................................................. 83
9.2.2 Experiment flow ................................................................................................ 84
9.3 APPENDIX C ................................................................................................................. 86
9.3.1 Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 86
9.3.2 Questionnaire schema ..................................................................................... 104
9.3.3 Online survey sample ...................................................................................... 107
9.4 APPENDIX D .............................................................................................................. 108
9.4.1 Reliability analysis tables ................................................................................ 108
9.5 APPENDIX E ............................................................................................................... 110
9.5.1 Papers summary .............................................................................................. 110

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List of tables

TABLE 1: COMPARISON BETWEEN MARKETING AND BIOMETRIC INSTRUMENTS ...................................................... 31

TABLE 2: RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT CONSTRUCTS (LAB) .................................................... 43
TABLE 3: RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT CONSTRUCTS (LAB) ........................................................ 44
TABLE 4: T-STUDENT ANALYSIS ON PPN, PPD, SI BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL AND HEDONIC PRODUCTS (LAB) ................ 45
TABLE 5: PEARSON CORRELATION ANALYSIS BETWEEN BIOMETRIC AND QUESTIONNAIRE-DECLARED PARAMETERS FOR
FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT (LAB) ............................................................................................................. 48
TABLE 6: PEARSON CORRELATION ANALYSIS BETWEEN BIOMETRIC AND QUESTIONNAIRE-DECLARED PARAMETERS FOR
HEDONIC PRODUCT (LAB) .................................................................................................................. 48
TABLE 7: T-STUDENT ANALYSIS ON PPN, PPD, SI BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL AND HEDONIC PRODUCTS (ONLINE) ............ 49
TABLE 8: VALIDITY TEST FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT CONSTRUCTS OF AROUSAL, ATTITUDE AND PLEASURE (ONLINE) ... 52
TABLE 9: VALIDITY TEST FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT CONSTRUCTS OF AROUSAL, ATTITUDE AND PLEASURE (ONLINE) ........ 52
TABLE 10: INNER MODEL ANALYSIS FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT (ONLINE) ........................................................... 53
TABLE 11: INNER MODEL ANALYSIS FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT (ONLINE) ................................................................ 54
TABLE 12: INDEPENDENT VARIABLES IMPACT ON ATTITUDE (ONLINE) .................................................................. 54
TABLE 13: FOUR SCENARIOS ........................................................................................................................ 57
TABLE 14: SCENARIO ANALYSIS FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT (ONLINE) ................................................................. 58
TABLE 15: SCENARIO ANALYSIS FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT (ONLINE) ...................................................................... 58
TABLE 16: SCENARIO ANALYSIS BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL AND HEDONIC PRODUCTS (ONLINE) .................................... 61
TABLE 17: RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT (ONLINE) ............................................................. 108
TABLE 18: RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT (ONLINE) .................................................................. 109

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List of figures
FIGURE 1: VOSS, SPANGENBERG AND GROHMANN MODEL OF ATTITUDE FORMATION AND PURCHASE INTENTION ...... 23
FIGURE 2: VOSS, SPANGENBERG AND GROHMANN MODEL OF HEDONIC AND UTILITARIAN IMPACT ON PURCHASE
INTENTION FORMATION .................................................................................................................... 24
FIGURE 3: KIM AND MORRIS MODEL OF PRODUCT ATTITUDE FORMATION ........................................................... 25
FIGURE 4: ATTITUDE FORMATION MODEL ..................................................................................................... 33
FIGURE 5: SMART PLS ANALYSIS FOR FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT (ONLINE) ............................................................... 56
FIGURE 6: SMART PLS ANALYSIS FOR HEDONIC PRODUCT (ONLINE) .................................................................... 56
FIGURE 7: FIRST COMPETITIVE ATTITUDE FORMATION MODEL .......................................................................... 62
FIGURE 8: SECOND COMPETITIVE ATTITUDE FORMATION MODEL ....................................................................... 62
FIGURE 9: BODY COMPOSITION MONITOR SCALE (FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT) .......................................................... 83
FIGURE 10: MP3 (HEDONIC PRODUCT) ........................................................................................................ 83
FIGURE 11: DEVICE WEARING AND SET UP .................................................................................................... 84
FIGURE 12: MATHEMATICAL OPERATION PHASE ............................................................................................. 84
FIGURE 13: STARING A NEUTRAL IMAGE ........................................................................................................ 84
FIGURE 14: LOOKING AT THE WEBSITE INFORMATION ...................................................................................... 85
FIGURE 15: LOOKING AT THE WEBSITE IMAGES ............................................................................................... 85
FIGURE 16: FILLING UP THE QUESTIONNAIRE .................................................................................................. 85
FIGURE 17: PERFORMING THE P300 TEST ..................................................................................................... 85

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Abstract
Each customer or potential customer is an addressee of companies’ market
researches but the question is, whether and to what extent, what he/she declares can
be considered reliable. Neuromarketing is an emerging discipline, which allows to
investigate bodily responses to stimuli, with the aim of discovering consumption
triggers, without potential biases deriving from consumer self-assessments. When a
customer comes in contact with a good or a service many feelings may arise: they
can have an influence in the short term or even have a long lasting impact. Emotional
reactions stemming from this encounter with new products may influence
consumers’ attitude, and thus the purchasing behaviour. Consequently, it is very
important to analyse costumers experience and emotions: this very topic is the focus
of our research.
In order to explore these issues, we conducted both a laboratory experiment and a
survey research. The primary aim of the lab experiment is, to understand whether
there is a correlation among biometrical measurements and declared-in-
questionnaires responses, which variables have an impact on the attitude towards a
product and what conditions favour consumers’ attitude. The main variable
investigated is Attitude, which we hypothesized to be influenced by Pleasure and
Arousal. To test existing correlations, both biometrically measured and
questionnaire-declared feelings were examined in 22 subjects while watching two
commercial websites. The research explores, in addition, customer’s Attitude
depending on the nature of the product, so the goods tested were two: one functional,
mostly purchased for the expected benefit and the other hedonic, mostly consumed
for sensory or affective satisfaction purposes. The same questionnaire filled in by the
laboratory volunteers was submitted online to a larger group of people, to investigate
in more detail the Attitude formation.
The major findings of the laboratory experiment were that, with few exceptions,
there is no correlation between the two biometrical assessed and declared emotions.
Thanks to the survey research, we discovered that Arousal and Pleasure have both an

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impact on functional products Attitude. Instead, only Pleasure influences Attitude for
goods having a hedonic nature. As concerns the possibility of defining the best
conditions to influence the consumer, we obtained relevant discoveries, coherent
with the definition of functional and hedonic product nature. It is easier to influence
the customers’ mind-set manipulating the pleasantness when they feel less aroused in
the case of functional products and when they feel more aroused in case of hedonic
products.
The research succeeded not only in providing valuable results in terms of knowledge
and implications, but also building a valid experimental protocol, useful for future
researches. In terms of biometric signals, all the records can be easily synchronized
with all the events of interest in order to perform a multivariate analysis restricted to
a specific event. Furthermore, we provided a hint as regards the jointly monitoring of
biometric and declared parameters for marketing purposes.

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1 Introduction
The focus of our research is investigating which emotions have an impact on
consumers’ attitude through Neuromarketing tools.
Why do customers buy an item instead of something else? What are the emotions
generated by the encounter with new products? What does really have an influence
on consumers’ attitude among the myriad of stimuli their brain is bombarded with?
Which is the mechanism triggered when an emotion hits someone?
Neuromarketing tries to give an answer to these questions (among many others)
adopting a scientific method and merging marketing techniques with biometric
measurements. One of the most relevant potentialities of merging neuroscience with
marketing, which is also the scope of our study, is the capability to associate
physiological responses with emotions. New technologies and devices are used to
monitor such physiological answers to certain stimuli. The examined parameters can
be electromagnetic activity of the brain, sweat, hearth and breath rate, facial
expressions and many more: so, researchers should be able to effectively understand
what are the emotions felt and what body says without actually asking anything.
This technique has, in addition, the aim of creating an environment as controlled as
possible in which, changing one variable at time, it is allowed to understand how
people react to different stimuli. Nowadays this methodology supports the more
classical tools of questionnaires, focus groups, ethnography, interviews etc.
Customer, indeed, are not always sincere and asking them explanation or the reason
of their way of feeling, doing and acting is not sufficient. To discover more about
what are the feelings that push a potential customer to buy or to be attracted by a
product, a more deep research is required by companies. This is the reason why
suddenly there is the need of adopting other instruments different from widespread
questionnaires. It may happen that human beings feel violated on a subconscious
level and find themselves to lie in order not to be marked or to attain to something
they had previously said. People might feel judged because of an improper question,
asked in wrong context or in the wrong way. Certainly also trust and confidence
between the interviewer and the interviewee influence the research outputs.
Beyond the possible contribute of new researches, do questionnaires and
physiological emotional responses to new products match or do they provide
different knowledge? Moreover do subconscious psychological responses really
influence consumers’ attitude toward a product and in its turn purchasing act?
Marketing literature has not provided a clear answer yet. However, research started
to give a definition of some specific emotions and understanding what is the role of
such feelings in the purchase decision-making. Someone also wondered if they could
be, in some way, classified or distinguished depending on the kind of product
emotions are addressed. Moreover, scholars have been trying to shape emotional
variables and model their relationship. In particular, marketing literature suggests
that attitude has two main components: affect, including all the emotional sphere,
and cognition, involving the rational and conscious part of human mind.
In Neuromarketing field, in the first place, the validity of results measured with
different psychophysiological devices was tested; then, answers to some products
(e.g. coffee, biscuits) were monitored. Nowadays many studies are focused for
example, on understanding and elaborating people’s reaction to a specific
commercial experience, in order to better assess the usefulness of a certain marketing
message or product. Several researches have been conducted in marketing adopting
Neuromarketing techniques, from investigating which component of a TV ad affects
more an hypothetical consumer or if there are cultural differences in the way we
accept an advertising message, to simply decide what kind of computer game
involves people the most.
However, there are still many questions to be answered. With regard to our focus we
wonder: what kind of emotions influence the most purchasing behaviours? What are
the essential components of attitude? How should attitude (and its components) be
measured? What do self-reports of attitude (and its components) really indicate? To
what extent self-reports and biometrical measurements match (if they do)?
It is essential to give an answer to these issues in order to have a complete
understanding on which methodologies and instruments marketers should employ, in

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order to optimise information gained. Up to now, research focused more on
investigating the physiological response to some stimuli rather than comprehending
the link between them and what people actually say in a questionnaire. Nowadays,
giving directives to marketers in order to better understand clients’ reactions and
hidden needs is vital to allow marketing as a discipline to grow and improve. Exactly
here is where our research is meant to have a place, understanding that the marketing
necessity lies on the acknowledgement of optimal emotional conditions that lead to
the purchasing process.
We propose a research aiming at analysing, through an experiment, these emotional
reactions to new products, both self-reported and physiological. Our first objective is
to discover if declared and biometrical variables are correlated in assessing
consumer’s emotional reactions. Our second objective is to understand the impact of
such emotions on attitude, to see what kind of factors actually influence the
propensity toward a product. Further, we investigate if emotional reactions and
attitude do change between functional and hedonic products, as prior research
suggested, considering that functional products consumption depends on the
expected benefits while hedonic product consumption aims at an affective or sensory
fulfilment (Woods, 1960). Third, we study the best conditions to favour attitude,
combining emotions that impact on it. We believe our research will convey a great
improvement to the already existing literature. The innovativeness of the project lies
on the investigation of attitude formation and links between questionnaire-declared
and biometrical responses. Furthermore, it provides a valuable protocol, which is
able to acknowledge which kind of biometrical variables are supposed to measure
different aspects of the costumer emotional sphere. Lastly, it gives some hints on
what companies should do, in terms of tools adopted, in order to measure consumers’
attitude and thus act consequently.
The work proceeds as follow: in the second chapter we will present an overview on
literature state-of-art, in the third and fourth we will define respectively our research
framework and the methodology adopted. It will follow the data analysis and finally
the results discussion and implications.

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2 Literature review

2.1 Neuromarketing
How do we choose products to buy? What does really have an influence on our
decisions, among the myriad of messages our brain is bombarded with? Maybe the
answer lies in a particularly successful advertising campaign? Or is it more likely
that our purchasing decisions happen beyond the surface of our perception, so deep
in our subconscious that we are seldom aware of them?
Neuromarketing tries to answer such questions. The term ‘Neuromarketing’ has been
coined by Smidts (2002) (Lewis and Bridger 2005) and represents an evolving
interdisciplinary field, which merges different disciplines focusing on consumer’s
behaviour: neuroscience, psychology and economics whose diversity
Neuromarketing should take advantage of. In particular, the focus is on how human
brain and decision-making process are affected by marketing strategies. Such area of
knowledge clearly is still at an embryonic state, as many aspects are still to be
investigated and future research fields are so wide and uncountable.
The purpose of Neuromarketing is to investigate consumers’ preferences (Murphy et
al. 2008) and physiological responses of human body, through cognitive
neurosciences. Without claiming to be precise, or going one step too far in
psychology or sociology fields, we can say that there is a big difference between
what we think and say and what we do. Some studies say subconscious accounts for
95 % of decisions but at the same time it is cloudy how to reveal such mysterious
part of the customer's mind, that traditional marketing approaches have never
reached (Zaltman 2003). The tools of neuroscience are supposed to guarantee to
have a look into the black box of human mind (Milijkovic and Alčakovič 2010),
studying the neuronal activities using the tools of neuro-imaging: brain images
technologies are becoming widespread in this field since they provide real-time
comprehension of consumer’s response.
However it has been difficult to mix knowledge of marketers and neuroscientists,
also due to the scepticism related to ethical and privacy issues by public opinion. In
fact, Neuromarketing techniques have the ability of read consumers’ minds and thus
they would become open books to companies. Another key point in the ethical
debate is whether or not it is fair to use inferred information for commercial purposes
(Fugate 2007).

2.1.1 Origin
Why has this branch developed from marketing? One of the main reasons is that the
key to its success lies in the ability of creating an effective imprint and feeling in
consumers’ mind, helping them to recall a specific brand or experience they have
had, fostering an emotional attachment and therefore loyalty in the repurchase.
Emotions act as intermediaries of consumers’ reactions to a stimulus: understanding
precisely the nature of such feelings is an important step to better address marketing
campaigns or implement other possible strategies and actions.
Neuromarketing was born to tackle the need of investigating more in depth
neurological activities related to answers to marketing stimuli, since traditional
research methods like surveys, questionnaires have proven to be unable to investigate
consumers’ attitudes properly. Indeed results are often biased by how these
methodologies are run and by the subject incapability of telling the truth. This,
maybe due to the sometimes unclear or inappropriate way questions are asked and
the unconscious nature of human behaviour. In other words subjects are believed to
be unable to self-assess (Lee et al. 2007) and sometimes they are even unable to
realize what their real emotions are (Murphy et al. 2008). Some researches by Morin
(2011) showed that only 20% of our brain is used consciously: thus, it is
unreasonable to waste a large amount of money trying to apply only methodologies
based on a Q&A framework for market research, if decisions are hardly rational.

2.1.2 Evolution and studies

Neuromarketing as a discipline was born in the U.S.A. and appeared in a structured
way in 2002, when some U.S. companies started offering Neuromarketing consulting

19
services stemming from the accumulated knowledge of cognitive neurosciences. In
fact it was just a matter of time for marketers to realise the applicability of
neurologists and scientists equipment to the discovery of consumers’ attitudes.
The first actual research dates back to 2003 when Read Montague, professor of
Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas) published, in 2004,
his study. He asked a group of volunteers to sip both Pepsi and Coca Cola under two
circumstances: being and not being aware of the brand they were tasting. Their
brains were scanned and the results were the following: in the former case people
preferred Coca Cola, in the latter they had rather consume Pepsi. The study showed
that Coca Cola brand was so powerful to have a piece of the frontal cortex dedicated
to it; such frontal lobe is the space in which the executive decisions take place and
handles people’s attention. However, when people –unaware of the brand- chose
Pepsi over Coca Cola, the most functioning place of the brain was the one
responsible for people’s emotional and instinctive behaviour. This study generated a
wave of criticism and media attacks since it mined the tools used to get customer
insights until then, and raised ethical issues, which have been a central argue, since
the birth of Neuromarketing. In fact the main fear about that was the possibility of
finding a magic formula to enter in peoples’ mind and inhibit their judgement ability.
However, Neuromarketing researches did not stop; on the contrary they had just
started. Critiques had not succeeded in their purposes since marketers wasted much
money to develop failing products and ineffective marketing campaigns. For this
very reason and due to economic recession, executives needed to get the maximum
returns from their investments, pushing the need for new and effective methods to
get inside customers’ mind. This discipline should be rather seen as a tool to better
comprehend human behaviour in business relationships and brain mechanisms
underlying social issues. Indeed, nowadays Neuromarketing is quickly becoming a
well-known approach and marketing advisors are more and more aware of its weight:
more than 90 Neuromarketing consultancy companies had been founded up in U.S.
and even more in Europe (Milijkovic and Alčakovič 2010); when someone googles
the word Neuromarketing, more than 480,000 results are displayed.

20
In the following years many other experiments have been run measuring
physiological indexes in many different fields: TV ad pleasantness, entertainment
playing experience, various foods (e.g. cookies) or beverages (e.g. coffee)
preferences and many others.

2.1.3 Applications
Neuromarketing has fostered many discoveries that nowadays have found
application in everyday selling techniques. By instance, we can track if the presence
of VIP or beautiful people in an advertisement helps in raising the trustfulness of a
brand, since they generate the activation of reward and good feeling in the brain, and
the same happens for puppies and children (Hubert and Kenning 2008). Always
regarding the reward area activation, two experiments deserve to be cited. First, in
the evaluation of car models tastes, the favourite ones are those linked to the idea of
well-being social status reputation (Lee et al. 2007; Garcia and Saad 2008; Fugate
2007). Second, about the evaluation of wine quality, there is a positive relation
between its price and the excellence perceived (Perrachione and Perrachione 2008;
Garcia and Saad 2008; Hubert and Kenning 2008). Last but not least, different
brands or category products can activate different brain areas: researchers, only
having an overview on the triggered zones can predict which brand or product the
subject is more likely to purchase.
Unfortunately there are also some limitations as well. The great majority of the
researches published involves enterprises consultancy projects: so, their reliability
results to be limited (Javor et al. 2013). Moreover the scientific methodology used
has found critiques: researches sometimes may result diverse according to the
statistical techniques employed (Marci 2008), so that very few things can be stated
and implied for sure. Also the experimental environment can differently impact on
such studies; indeed, the location of the laboratory can result more stressing or more
relaxing (depending on the kind of environment) than the real situation people are
exposed to (Fugate, 2007; Lee et al. 2007). High costs can be considered a limitation
as well, both in terms of up-to-date technologies to be bought and regulation issues
with companies and public entities (Hubert and Kenning 2008).

21
Neuromarketing application fields are countless. Every company or business that
needs a deep understanding of its customers may require Neuromarketing experts’
competencies, in order to comprehend preferences, to foresee reactions, to discover
insights or whether or not customers will like a new product or service.
Neuromarketing has seen a dramatic improvement in the last decade, though it has
not reached its full potential yet. Actually few marketers have a deep knowledge
about neurocognitive sciences and they have long feared the abovementioned ethical
concerns by public opinion. However, the situation is changing quickly: more and
more researches are being run to reach all the maximum possibilities about this
discipline. The usage of Neuromarketing could open the way to a completely new
method to conduct marketing research and find the best approaches to provide
customers’ insights.

2.2 Neuromarketing for the study of

product responses

2.2.1 Emotions and attitude

Marketing literature suggests different models and theories as regards the influence
of emotions on attitude formation and following purchasing process. The purchase
process is anticipated by the intention of buying, depending in turn on the attitude
developed in the customer. Attitude forms in response to more than one stimulus
(Bagozzi 1999).
For example, Voss, Spangenberg, and Grohmann (2003) state that attitude,
specifically toward brand, impacts on purchase intention and it is induced by both
affective and cognitive involvement. This model is represented in Figure 1.
“For affect-based attitudes, affective reactions exert a primary and powerful
influence on the individual, and the attitude is initially acquired with minimal
cognitive appraisal. […] For cognition-based attitudes, domain-relevant information
is acquired first and affective factors come into play only after, as a result of,
considerable cognitive appraisal. Although affective processes often occur in

22
cognition- based attitudes, their role in shaping attitude development is minimal”
(Edwards, 1990 pp. 203-4). In other words, Edwards explains that affect is the most
emotional part of an individual while cognition is the set of all the rational reactions
that the consumer is aware of.

Figure 1: Voss, Spangenberg and Grohmann Model of Attitude Formation and Purchase Intention

Always considering both affective and cognitive responses, as the main components
that have an impact on attitude, they are made up of different (depending on the
model considered) constructs. For example, Kempf (1999) suggests through his
model that affect is represented by pleasure and arousal: the former is defined as a
part of the reward system of our brain that provokes subjective feelings (Touhami et
al. 2010), while the latter as “bodily change following directly the perception of an
existing fact” (James, 1950 pp. 449) and, on the other hand, cognition is represented
by expectancy value from brand attributes, as a result of brand beliefs, belief
confidence and attribute evaluation.
Regarding the role of only affective responses, many researchers, for example
Richins (1997), discovered that they (e.g. pleasure and arousal) are consequences of
consumption and are bond to satisfaction.
Another very widespread theory is the one regarding the different roles of affective
and cognitive involvement on different kind of products. As modelled, again by
Voss, Spangenberg and Grohmann (2003), the former is believed to have an impact

23
on hedonic, while the latter on the utilitarian extent of consumer’s attitude. The
model is represented in the following picture (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Voss, Spangenberg and Grohmann Model of Hedonic and Utilitarian Impact on Purchase
Intention Formation

Instead, in Kempf’s studies (1999), the role of cognitive structure is told to be more
influential only toward functional products. But, according to several recent
researches by Bodur and colleagues (2000) and Chaudhuri and co-workers (2002)
affect is, in any case, much more significant in the attitude formation.
Researchers as Zajonc and Markus (1982) or Petty, DeSteno and Ruker (2001) found
out that not only cognitive structure and affective responses contribute, but
behavioural aspects, as well, are to be taken into account in order to make up an
effective message and marketing strategy.
Other theories suggest that context itself contributes to shape the attitude:
Chamberlain and Broderick (2007) underline how emotions are strictly bonded to the
context in which they are experienced.
Lastly, product trial may be an important step of consumer’s attitude formation. In
marketing, it is one of the most used hands-on a priori tactics in order to simulate the
actual usage of products. Through this, thanks to newly gained information, not
easily accessible otherwise by marketers, and thanks to the usage of five senses by
consumers, attitude toward the product starts to be shaped. In reference to this, Kim
and Morris (2007) suggest an interesting model, showed in Figure 3, in order to

24
understand how the product trial attitude happens. The model suggests that product
attitude, that is the propensity toward a specific product, is influenced by trial
attitude, which in turn is always induced by both affect and cognition.

Figure 3: Kim and Morris Model of Product Attitude Formation

Despite these studies, the role of emotions in attitude formation has not been fully
explored yet in marketing literature. Further developments are necessary and they
will hopefully enrich and clarify these early-stage theories. Attitude investigation,
indeed, is the starting point to understand intention and behavioural aspect of each
potential customer.
In the field of Neuromarketing, many human reactions are investigated, in the form
of feelings and emotions, measured according to their relevance for marketing
researches. But, why such responses are so relevant for marketing? In order to
achieve a good marketing proposition it is crucial to be able to foresee customers’
reactions and understand what kind of emotions will be triggered. Looking at
emotions, they are very intense because bonded to a specific moment, when the state
of readiness is high; while investigating moods and attitudes, they tend to be less
intense but at the same time more rooted in the customer’s conscience (Bagozzi
1999). Furthermore emotions arise in a different way rather than moods and
attitudes: formers are created in response to appraisals, while latters are slower to be
formed and in response to more than one stimulus (Bagozzi 1999).

25
It is crucial to stress that the reactions in terms of emotions, moods and attitudes to
the same event may be felt differently from person to person: so it is also important
to delineate a specific target for the marketing research. In the big family of
emotions, the most relevant for marketing researches are arousal and pleasure, which
represent the level of bodily and mental ratification and can be measured through
Neuromarketing tools such as Electrocardiographic or Galvanometer. Also other
kinds of variables are useful to understand the relevance of a marketing message, for
example the level of attention and memorization, since they can prove the ability of
the message to catch customer’s mind, and customer’s openness to receive inputs.
As mentioned above, different kind of parameters may be taken into account,
according to the marketing research objective. In the following lines we will provide
some definitions of the human reactions that can be measured.

• Affect is “the set of more specific mental processes such as emotions, mood,
attitude. It can be considered as a general category for mental feeling processes,
rather than a particular psychological process per se”(Bagozzi et al., 1999 pp.
184).

• Emotion is “a mental state of readiness that arises from appraisals of events or

one’s own thoughts” (Bagozzi et al., 1999 pp. 184); “it is essentially bodily
arousal plus a cognitive label one provides to diagnose his/her felt arousal”
(Bagozzi et al., 1999 pp. 192).

• Arousal is “a bodily change following directly the perception of an existing fact”

(James, 1950 pp. 449).

• Pleasure is a part of the reward system of our brain that provokes subjective
feelings and contributes to positive emotions, bringing about addiction (Touhami
et al., 2010).

• Mood is “very similar to an emotion, but longer lasting and of lower intensity”
(Bagozzi, 1999 pp. 184).

• Attitude cannot be described by a unique definition; there are many opinions as

regards this specific construct. Some authors believe it to be an evaluative

26
 judgement, rather than specific emotional states, measured, for example by good-
bad reactions (Cohen and Areni, 1991). Others propose a different kind of view,
where attitude has two distinct components: affective and cognitive. (Bagozzi,
1999).

2.2.2 Products
Literature commonly makes a distinction between hedonic and utilitarian products
(Kempf 1999; Kim and Morris 2007) and at the same time, between hedonic and
utilitarian attitude components (Batra and Ahtola 1991).
Considering the first classification, hedonic products are consumed mostly for
affective or sensory fulfilment aim, while functional products depend on the
expected benefits (Woods, 1960). As regards consumers’ attitude instead, hedonic
component is associated to sensory and experiential approach, while utilitarian is
more related to an instrumental and functional approach. Beyond these preliminary
definitions these two concepts can be integrated: according to Kempf (1991), affect
component influences more consumers’ attitude toward hedonic products, while
cognition has a significant impact only on functional products.
Actually, this distinction can be not so straightforward: in fact a product may be
perceived as both hedonic and utilitarian. Voss and colleagues (2003), for example,
mention blue jeans as functional products, since having clothes is a necessity, but
people spend much money and time on choosing them as a trendy piece of fashion.
Another level of analysis is about the function of exemplars in the creation of
attitudes toward a category. From Loken and co-workers (2002), singular items
evaluation can foresee consumers’ attitudes in a specific class.

2.3 Methods and instruments

Biometric measurements through the usage of sensors, can control physiological
human reactions and improve knowledge about consumers’ purchasing process.
These technologies may lead to the understanding of something about customers,

27
that they would not tell because of the intimate or unconscious nature of their
thoughts.
The paragraphs below show first some research method classifications and then
instruments described according to the two more relevant categories (marketing and
biometric). The related tools are defined in term of Classification of method,
Analysis (when possible), Description, Features, Advantages and Limits in Appendix
A.

2.3.1 Methods
Various are the possible classification of research methods.
First of all, methods can be qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative marketing
researches aim at understanding the reasons behind customer’s behaviours and
actions, such as motivations, goals and drivers. Quantitative marketing researches
aim to quantify the insights (from qualitative research) in order to generalize them to
a target population. They measure the presence of phenomena and quantify it. This
distinction is one of the aspects considered in our study.
The second distinction, on which we have focused, is between questioning and
observational methods because the experiment developed sees, in parallel, the use of
these two types of methodologies. Question-based marketing researches obtain
information through asking directly what is needed. The study consists of a set of
unstructured or structured questions, either to explore respondents’ opinion regarding
the subject or to draw conclusion of a specific hypothesis. Observational marketing
researches gather information, observing subjects (also with the aid of devices)
directly or indirectly in natural or planned environments. They allow to identify
actions in response to various stimuli.
Finally, we distinguished behavioural, verbal or psychological methods. Behavioural
measures, as purchase acts, time and money spent, assess the actual actions
performed by customers or consumers. Verbal measures can be based on self-
reported assessments of emotions, memory and whatever asked. Psychological
measures investigate involuntary reactions (Wang and Minor 2008). In this case, our

28
research has the aim to investigate the validity of the results and data from
instruments that use the methodologies described as well.
These taxonomies allow us, in the following paragraphs, to define each instrument
and detect common and/or divergent possible traits. In the Classification of method
label, each tool is categorised according to the methodologies described (see
Appendix A). It is important to stress that these instruments, using different methods,
can be complementary, substitutive or even lead to conflicting results; this is another
focus of our research. To conclude, a common feature, among the numerous
methods, is a trade-off between sample and analysis depth. There are more
superficial approaches, like surveys, which are more standardised, quicker and allow
the usage of a large sample. Some others, instead, require more efforts (in terms of
money and time spent) to develop a deeper analysis although using a smaller sample.
Researchers should often combine the usage of qualitative and quantitative,
behavioural, verbal and psychological methods implemented on questioning and on
observation. For example about the complementarity of qualitative and quantitative
approaches we can say that the first methods have the aim to explore, the second to
describe and explain.

2.3.2 Instruments

2.3.2.1 Marketing instruments

The starting point is to understand which are the marketing tools developed in order
to tackle consumers’ needs. We will present an overview on the most widespread
instruments: some of them are just meant to ask something to the costumer, in order
to understand what people say (e.g. survey); others, instead, are more focused to see
what people do (e.g. ethnographic studies) or to apprehend how people react to some
stimuli (e.g. experiment).
In order to go into a detailed description, in Appendix A there is a explanation of the
following instruments: In Depth Interview, Focus Group, Online Focus Group,
Survey Questionnaire, Ethnographic Study and Experiment.

29
2.3.2.2 Biometric instruments
Biometric or bio-physiological measurement is a really well known and widespread
tool in Neuromarketing. “The term biometrics derives its name from the Greek word
bios (life) and metron (measure)” (Koltzsch, 2007 pp. 119). Biometrics is adopted to
discover some distinctive features about a person and later to exploit such unique
hint (Corcoran, 1999). Biometric is a discipline that uses some tools and
technological applications to measure bodily response to certain stimuli. The most
important feature is the possibility to discover customers. Biometric market research
is growing fast since researches are eager to observe brain and body reactions,
without relying only on conscious experience.
Brain activity can be described with three main elements: localisation (activated
areas of the brain), connectivity (connected areas of the brain) and representation
(parts of the brain used in the information storing process). One of the main
dissimilarities among various methods consists in the accuracy of spatial and
temporal resolution (Miljković and Alčakovic 2010). Furthermore, the results gained
are often very accurate and can convey neat, undiluted responses.
Respecting the principle of the classification of Bagozzi (1991) it is possible to group
the main psychophysiological measures in three groups:
1. CNS measures
CNS stands for central nervous system, which supervises the main functions of
elaboration and control. They include non-hemispheric brain wave and brain
imaging analysis. Brain wave analysis studies human brain waves in frequency
variation. Non-hemispheric lateralization brain wave analysis examines the
process of brain activity, while hemispheric lateralization brain wave analysis
investigates the differences in the two brain hemispheres when they respond to
external stimuli (Wang and Minor 2008). Brain imaging is a diagnostic technique
that allows to view brain activity;
2. ANS measures
ANS stands for automatic nervous system, which regulates the functions of
internal organs and controls the unconscious bodily functions. They include

30
 pupillary response, electrodermal analysis, voice pitch analysis, heart rate
response and vascular activity;
3. SNS measures
SNS stands for somatic nervous measures, which is a part of the peripheral
nervous system that aims at allowing and supervising the voluntary body
movements through skeleton and muscles and it is made up of nerves. They
include facial muscle activity and eye movement analysis.
Instruments described are used as tool for the previous categories of analysis. In
order to go into a detailed description, in Appendix A there is a explanation of the
following instruments: EEG, electroencephalography; SSPT, steady-state probe
topography; PET, positron emission tomography; fMRI, functional magnetic
resonance imaging; MEG, magnetoencephalography; Pupillometrics; Galvanometer
device; Audio Adapted Computer Equipment; ECG, electrocardiogram; Blood
pressure monitor; EMG, Electromyography; Eye tracker.
Following, we present the main advantages and disadvantages of marketing and
biometric research techniques and their recommended usage (Table 1).

Table 1: Comparison between Marketing and Biometric Instruments

Marketing Measures Biometrics Measures

Info gathered
• They allow context awareness • Considering that autonomic
and the possibility to ask in depth reactions are not under control,
information about users psychophysiological measures
experience offer basic, unbiased and
sensitive measure of people
• These methods can complement response to a stimulus
prior researches
• They provide objective
information: neurological tests
Advantage reach a rigorous degree of
scientific results
• They provide detailed
information
• Inner activity of the brain is
monitored without the need of
subjective report
• These methods can complement
prior researches

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 Implementation, timing and costs
• These methods are widespread • They require smaller samples
for the easiness, readiness and because men and women brains
fluency of the implementation and children and adults brains
have different responses
• Some of these methods are the
cheapest available on the market • There is the possibility to gain
results in real time
• In general, they are not much
time consuming • Most of methods are non-invasive
Info gathered
• Respondents using self-reported • In some case, lack of reliability
verbal measures often expect to and validity and limits in
give socially adequate answers applicability of knowledge
reached, discourage further
• Some marketing responses are applications
biased by the cognitive processes
activated during the interview
• Consumers experience cannot be
adequately described by self-
report verbal indicators because
the willingness and competency
to describe how they feel are not
sufficient

Disadvantage Implementation, timing and costs

• Conventional methods for testing
and predicting the effectiveness
of investments could fail
• There could be a distortion
element (for example the
interviewer may have a great
influence on the respondent)
More
• These are often time consuming
techniques
• These techniques are difficult to
be deployed
• Outcomes are sometimes hard to
quantify and it is difficult to
generalise findings
• Ethical issues
• Difficulty of use, very few
marketing researches have formal
training

• Complementary to other • Complementary to self-report

measurements techniques, body posture,
gestures, facial expressions
• If there are ethical problems with analysis and physiological
Suggested use
the usage of other methods responses
• If the alternative methods are
invasive

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3 Research framework

3.1 Our starting point

Literature gave some emotions definitions and proposed many models regarding
attitude formation. Nevertheless, moving over from theory to practice is not easy and
it is still unclear which emotions influence attitude and the related purchasing
process. Our model (Figure 4) was shaped re-elaborating previously mentioned
theoretical contributions focusing on purchasing process flow, Attitude role and
Attitude hypothesized components. The necessity of enriching the knowledge about
attitude formation and the rise of new technologies pushed us to empirically test this
model.

Figure 4: Attitude Formation Model

In our model Attitude is made up of Pleasure and Arousal, and product nature is
considered as a moderating factor. It cannot be omitted that literature actually
considers also another attitude component: cognition, i.e. the rational sphere of
human brain. Further, context can be considered as a confounding variable, as it has
an impact on the relationship that occurs between independent (pleasure, arousal and
cognition) and dependent (attitude) constructs. Last but not least, attitude does not
end in itself but has an impact on the intention, which in turns influences the
purchasing behaviour. However, the focus of our analysis is just on the relationship
between pleasure and attitude and arousal and attitude.

3.2 Research objectives

Given the results of the already mentioned researches, we decided to develop our
study having four objectives:
1. Investigating the association between self-reported emotions and physiological
emotions toward a product;
2. Testing the hypothesized Attitude model, understanding whether self-reported
emotions have an impact on consumers’ Attitude and potential competitive
models;
3. Investigating the relationship between self-reported Arousal and Pleasure and
their combined impact on Attitude and discovering the best condition to favour
consumers’ Attitude;
4. Defining a simplified protocol for further Neuromarketing researches.

3.3 Variables investigated by our research

To sum up emotions investigated by our research, according to the model and the
research objectives mentioned, can be distinguished in self-report and biometrical
responses. The self-report responses (also called latent variables) to be inspected
would be Product Perceived Nature, Product Perceived Diagnostic, Situational
Involvement, Arousal, Pleasure, Memorization, Expectancy-Value model / Multi-
Attribute model and Attitude. While, looking at the biometrical ones, we have: Heart
Frequency, Heart Variability Signal Power in HF band, Breath Frequency, Breath
Variability Signal Power in LF band, Coherent Power, Skin Conductance Average
Value, Memorization Index, Attention Index and Pleasantness Index.

34
4 Methodology
In order to give an answer to our study objectives, we simultaneously developed a
laboratory experiment and an online survey. These two paths are complementary and
independent at the same time: complementary because they both provide results
about Attitude construct considering different information; independent because they
are built with two different sample populations and methodologies. The online
survey was made in order to have a bigger sample than the number of people
available to the laboratory and thus to have more reliable results on the marketing
side. Thus, two different kind of analysis were performed on data. In the next
paragraph, the questionnaire, common for experiment and online survey, will be
presented.

4.1 Questionnaire
First the variables to measure have been chosen: questionnaires submitted assess
Products Perceived Nature, Product Perceived Diagnostic, Situational Involvement,
Arousal, Pleasure (Valence), Expectancy-Value and Multi-Attribute model, Attitude
and Memorization. Second, considering the designing of the questionnaire, the
response format consists of only close-ended questions with the only exception of the
demographic section, which encloses both open-ended (e.g. age, nationality) and
close-ended questions. Third some common features define the question sections.
Measurements are numerical and discrete and built on likert scales, to express the
intensity of opposite attitudes regarding a concept and on semantic differential scales
to express the perception about two opposite characteristics. Finally the question
wording tries to be relevant, specific and clear to avoid confusion and bias.
The complete version of the questionnaire and a schema of it, construct by construct
and item by item, can be found in Appendix C. In the following paragraph, sections
are described more in detail as regard variables measured. Every section repeats
twice, as the questionnaire has two macro-areas, one for each product tested: the
body composition monitor scale (see Appendix B, Figure 9) and the MP3 (see
Appendix B, figure 10).

• The first section includes two questions involving confounding and manipulation
variables. The first one is about the Product Perceived Nature i.e. the perception
of whether and to what extent the product is believed to be functional or hedonic.
The second regards the Product Perceived Diagnostic, meaning the usefulness of
information provided.

• The second section involves the following dependent and independent variables:
Situational Involvement, Arousal and Pleasure. Situational Involvement can be
described as the emotive participation in a product that may affect the reactions
to it; it is related to a particular experience, thus it is a contextual variable.

• The third part is about the cognitive evaluation of the products functions through
the mean of the website. An Expectancy-Value/Multi-Attribute model is used to
ask an opinion regarding a specific functionality of the product shown (MP3 and
a body composition monitor scale) and then to ask the importance of that precise
function in any product of the same category.

• The fourth section is about the Attitude toward a product.

• The fifth part consists in Memorization. People were asked to mark the product,
shown in different pictures and positions, they thought to have seen on the
website. This was performed with three groups, including three products each.

• Lastly, some demographic questions were requested, as close-ups. In particular,

information demanded is: sex, age, qualification, employment and nationality.

4.2 Lab experiment

This paragraph deals with the description of the experiment conducted in the
laboratory of Politecnico di Milano (Biomedical Engineering Department).

36
4.2.1 Sampling
Defining the target population, the experiment was conducted with 21 subjects
between 20 and 30 years old, of both sexes, attending University (for the great
majority the Politecnico di Milano).
Although this may seem quite a low number, the great amount of biometrical data
collected from each subject justifies their reliability and statistical significance. In
fact, for each person analysed, neurophysiological information was continuously
gathered for about 36 minutes. Furthermore, also in the previous publication and
experiments (Mandryk et al. 2005) made in this field the number of subjects was
around 15/20 people tested. It is worth citing the experiment of Mandryk and
colleagues (2005) on the efficacy of physiological measurements as tools to evaluate
collaborative entertainment technologies counting 7 participants, or the experiment
by Vecchiato and associates (2012) on the observation of Approach-Withdrawal
patterns in 15 people watching TV advertisements, or again the 30-volunteers
research by Yücel and co-workers (2015) aiming at understanding of coffee
preferences through brain signals.

4.2.2 Tools used

Among all possible tools existing on the market (see Appendix A), the devices
available and compatible with our research were: Electrocardiographic (ECG),
Respiration Sensor band, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors,
Electroencephalography (EEG).
EEG allows to follow the brain activity on a millisecond base, even if the recorded
signals are mainly due to the activity generated on the cortical structures (more
superficial) of the brain. Another instrument, fMRI, would be capable of sensing
activations also in deep brain structures, but with an inadequate time resolution,
resulting to be unsuitable in tracking the brain dynamics.
Moreover, signs of emotional processing can be collected by recording variations of
bodily activities bonded to the emotive processes, for example the action of sweat
glands on the hands and/or the variation of the cardiac frequency (Baumgartner et al.
2006). That is why we used the tools of ECG and GSR sensors. Indeed, it is possible

37
to measure the inner emotional state of the subject monitoring the autonomic activity
thanks to devices capable to trace the variation of the skin conductivity (Galvanic
Skin Responses, GSR) and the Heart Rate (HR). Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)
activity is actually observed as a convenient measure of indexing variations in
sympathetic arousal linked with emotion, cognition, and attention (Critchley 2002).

4.2.3 Tools preparation

People were welcomed and briefly explained what the experiment would have
consisted of. The researchers started to put the biomedical equipment on.
First of all three single-use electrodes were placed on the body to measure the
Electrocardiographic (ECG) signal, from which the information about the Heart Rate
(HR) can be extracted: specifically the negative electrode on the right shoulder, the
positive one on lower centre of left side of the chest and finally the ground electrode
on the left shoulder.
Then, the Respiration Sensor band was fixed all around the chest and a couple of
sensors were attached on the index finger and on the ring finger of the left hand of
the subject. These tools were useful to measure respectively the Breath Rate (BR)
and the Electrodermal Activity (EDA), also called Galvanic Skin Response (GSR).
In particular, the first one consisted in an easy fitting rubber band fixed with a self-
adhering belt and detects the chest expansion or contraction, showing the respiration
waveform and amplitude. The Galvanic Skin Response sensor, instead, uses two
reusable electrodes that are stitched inside Velcro straps and the conductive part of
the electrode was placed in the internal part of the finger. The kind of signal
registered from it shows relatively rapid increases and slower decreases.
Last but not least, the most delicate operation was performed: subjects were made to
wear a cap, in order to place small electrodes (each one attached to a single wire) on
the scalp. In order to place it in the exact centre of the head, some measurements
were required: the distance between the supra-nasal grove (nasion) and the little
bump in the mid occipital region (inion) and the distance between the two pre-
auricular notches, in a way to calculate 50% of both measures and find the point
where they cross over. The cap had small holes in it, which allowed the exposition of

38
the skin moving hair manually and the injection over such area of a conductive gel.
This method is called Electroencephalography (EEG) and it is useful to monitor the
electrical activity of the brain. The number of electrodes chosen was 28 based on the
previous work found in literature and because this amount is useful in order to
calculate some quantitative indices (e.g. memorization, attention and pleasantness
[like in the research work of Vecchiato and colleagues (2012)]).
All the above-mentioned tools were linked to two computers, one showing the EEG
recordings and the other one the remaining measurements trends.

4.2.4 Experiment flow

After the subject wore all devices, instruments set up was made and computer started
recording information (see Figure 11 in Appendix B). First of all, volunteers were
shown some mathematical calculations to be performed very quickly only in their
mind, in order to activate mind and bodily responses and destabilise them a little bit
(see Figure 12 in Appendix B). Then, a neutral image was displayed (see Figure 13
in Appendix B) to infer the baseline of the subject: these phases lasted 2 and 3
minutes respectively. The next step consisted in letting subjects navigating two
websites (see Figure 14 and Figure 15 in Appendix B), one regarding a functional
product, i.e. delivering more cognitive-oriented benefits (Woods 1960) that in our
case was a body composition monitor scale and the other a hedonic product i.e.
consumed primarily for affective or sensory gratification purposes (Woods 1960)
that in our case was an MP3. After seeing each website, the questionnaire was
submitted in order to measure Pleasure, Arousal, Attention and Memorization in a
self-declared way (see Figure 16 in Appendix B).
Not by chance, these variables correspond to the ones computed quantitatively with
biometrics measurements. Going more in detail, both HR and BR are indirect signs
of emotional processing, EDA measured arousal and lastly EEG allows evaluating
pleasure, attention and memorization trends.
The last task to be performed by subjects was to pay attention to an array of three
different images displayed, each appearing 60 times in a random order, and click the
mouse button every time they saw the same product picture they had seen few

39
minutes before on the website (see Figure 17 in Appendix B). This step was
performed so to elicit the brain wave called P300, which measures the brain response
as an outcome of (in our case) a cognitive event, i.e. the recognition, and thus the
implicit memorization, of the previously seen image; it is a relevant variable in the
decision making process. The P300 is elicited by each trial or event but needs to be
repeated and group averaged to improve the signal to noise ratio, so this phase lasted
7 minutes. After this phase a paper questionnaire was submitted again, and
volunteers were asked once again to mark the image they thought to have seen.

4.3 Online survey

This paragraph deals with the description of the web survey shared on
SurveyMonkey.

4.3.1 Sampling
The sample size was not defined a priori, there was just a minimum threshold of
around 200 respondents. This value should allow a sufficient reliability of the results
obtained. We ended up having 207 respondents for the MP3 section, of which 198
valid and 248 for the scale section, of which 245 valid. The questionnaire was shared
in many platforms or sent directly by e-mail; in a few months it was possible to reach
and overcome the defined threshold and start the analysis. Information regarding the
demographic features of the sample is reported in Appendix C.

40
5 Data analysis
Starting with the laboratory experiment, we had 22 volunteers, while the respondents
of the online survey were 248 for the scale and 207 for the MP3.
As already defined in the description of the questionnaire, the constructs (also called
latent variables or factors) to be inspected would be Product Perceived Nature,
Product Perceived Diagnostic, Situational Involvement, Arousal, Pleasure,
Expectancy-Value model/ Multi-Attribute model and Attitude.
Once gathered all data from both paper and online surveys, we performed a
preliminary data analysis in order to understand some statistical and qualitative
features of the information we obtained, a sort of analysis before the analysis. Such
procedure was performed using three tools: Excel, SPSS Statistics and Smart PLS.
Before performing the usual data cleaning steps, we decided to delete some questions
due to an erroneous transcription of the product information in the website the
volunteers had seen and the incoherency in their measurement scale. The erased
questions were (both for the scale and MP3) some items of the Expectancy-Value
model / Multi-Attribute model construct, in particular those regarding the
price/quality ratio and all the weight given to each feature of the two products (see
Appendix C, items 5V and 5W for the functional product and items 3V and 3W for
the hedonic product). Furthermore, we were obliged not to consider the answers of
the first volunteer of the experiment as well, because the questionnaire he filled in
was only a draft, and thus later modified.
Then, data cleaning was performed on both databases and both products: that is to
say making the data ready to be analysed without any kind of incoherency or
mistakes. The steps followed this order:
1. Erase monotonic responses
Respondents who answered the same thing throughout the entire questionnaire
are useless. Only subjects who gave answers with a variance higher than 0,5 are
believed to be useful (Yeh 2009). No cancellation was necessary on the paper
questionnaire data. On the contrary, performing such analysis on the online
 survey data, we did not keep under consideration some respondents: for example
number 001, whose answer variance was 0,48;
2. Treatment of missing values
We actually found no missing answers in the questions we have considered;
3. Deleting outliers
In our case outliers are considered as incoherent answers. Actually these were not
found in our databases, this was due to the general multiple-choice structure of
the questionnaire.
The two different trails of preliminary data analysis are now briefly listed.
As regards paper questionnaires, we performed the following steps:

• Normality test

• Reliability analysis

• Means calculation and Common Method Bias

• T-student analysis among PPN, PPD and SI

While, as regards online survey:

• Means calculation and Common Method Bias

• T-student analysis among PPN, PPD and SI

Independently from the kind of analyses and whether they regard the laboratory or
the online survey, we chose a statistical significance level of tests of 95%: only
results with p-values lower than 0,05 will be accepted.

5.1 Lab experiment

5.1.1 Preliminary analysis

Normality test
For the paper questionnaires, we performed a Normality test (any detailed
explanation would be redundant), in order to understand both if the items and the

42
means of items for each construct follow a Normal distribution. This test is
particularly useful to understand which kind of correlation to use after these
preliminary analyses (Pearson or Spearman). It was performed with SPSS statistic
software and revealed that all the means of constructs follow a Normal distribution.

Reliability analysis
Continuing to analyse the paper questionnaires with the support of SPSS Statistics,
we conducted a reliability analysis for our seven latent variables.
Through this test we wanted to check first the reliability and consistency of all
questions together: closer to 1 the response variable of the test (Cronbach’s Alpha),
better the construct is explained. Actually the common minimum value of
Cronbach’s Alpha is 0,70 (Hair et al. 2006). Second, each item is assessed
separately: the test checks the relevance of each single question in the
characterization of the construct. This result shows how the Cronbach’s Alpha, and
thus the reliability of the construct, changes if one item is deleted from the
questionnaire. Actually all the scales we used had already been exploited and chosen
in previous studies with accuracy, so it is not advisable to delete items that compose
the questionnaire superficially.
Our results, in terms of general reliability of constructs, are presented in the
following tables (Table 2 and Table 3), where the first one refers to the scale, while
the second to the MP3.

Table 2: Reliability Analysis for Functional Product Constructs (Lab)

N of
Construct Mean Std. Deviation Cronbach’s Alpha
items
Arousal 6 3,4841 ,9558 ,8320
Attitude 10 4,7000 ,8068 ,8610
Pleasure 6 4,6984 ,6115 ,7300
Expected Value Model 5 4,9905 ,6971 ,3930
Situational Involvement 3 5,4603 ,8974 ,7730
N = 21
Significance level: p < 0,05

43
Table 3: Reliability Analysis for Hedonic Product Constructs (Lab)

N of
Construct Mean Std. Deviation Cronbach’s Alpha
items
Arousal 6 3,2302 ,8290 ,6640
Attitude 10 4,1048 1,0538 ,9390
Pleasure 6 4,4762 ,7643 ,7730
Expected Value Model 5 4,7429 ,9902 ,5900
Situational Involvement 3 4,9206 1,2257 ,8770
N = 21
Significance level: p < 0,05

Looking at the values of Cronbach’s Alpha, as theoretically explained, they show an

acceptable, or nearly acceptable (e.g. MP3 Arousal) reliability. Tables showing the
improvement of Cronbach’s Alpha value for each single item erased have not been
presented, since each enhancement of the initial Cronbach’s Alpha is not very
significant due to the good starting reliability.

Means calculation and Common Method Bias

We computed the mean of each construct, considering the items that compose them
and we developed the Common Method Bias analysis. It is a measurement error
about the validity of statistical conclusions. It could happen that people, affected by
distortions in the subject's mind, respond uniformly to all variables just because the
test uses the same instrument (in our case, the questionnaire) to measure all the
variables that a person might respond to. To verify the absence of common method
bias effects, using Harman's single factor test, defined as the simplest measure, the
percentage value of variance on component 1 must be inferior of 50 (Podsakoff et al.
2003). It can easily be verified that our experiment makes sense: in fact, scale’s and
MP3’s component 1 percentage of variance are respectively 32,230 and 33,416, both
lower than 50.

T-student analysis among PPN, PPD and SI

The last analysis performed on the laboratory questionnaires was the T-Student
statistic test. It was performed on three factors: Product Perceived Nature, Product
Perceived Diagnostic and Situational Involvement. The aim was to understand
whether:

44
• Our products were perceived as significantly different in their nature (functional
or hedonic);

• The information given about the two products was equally clear and understood
by the participants;

• The information given was caught with the same extent by the two goods.

In order to validate our experiment and respective hypotheses, we expected to have

statistically significant different Product Perceived Nature and statistically
significant near values for both Product Perceived Diagnostic and Situational
Involvement. These values are represented by the means, while their statistical
significance in terms of distance by the p-values of the test.
In two-tailed tests, choosing a significance level of 5%, path coefficient will be
believed to be significant only for T-statistics higher than the value of 1,96.
Test results are the following (see Table 4).

Table 4: T-student Analysis on PPN, PPD, SI between Functional and Hedonic Products (Lab)

Mean for
Functional Hedonic
Factor Product Product T-Statistic p-value
PPN 1,4762 5,0952 -8,2390 ,0000
PPD 5,2381 4,6190 1,5760 ,1230
SI 5,4603 4,9206 1,6020 ,1170
N = 21
Significance level: p < 0,05

With regard to Product Perceived Nature, we can see that the two means are very
distant from one another: this is a good result, because the two products are
perceived as different in their nature (functional and hedonic), as it was
hypothesized. This test is statistically significant, since the p-value is < 0,001. On
the contrary, even if the means of the two other factors are close (exactly what we
expected), this result is not to be taken into consideration, since the significance level
is higher than 0,05.

45
5.1.2 Core analysis: correlation between
biometric and survey data
Here we present all the tests investigating the first objective of the research. In
general the analysis has the goal of understanding whether there is a correlation
between declared and biometrically measured responses or not. Thus the analysis,
performed with SPSS, was made in order to find out if these two measurements
would correspond.
Data regarding the subjects’ cardiac activity (ECG) and respiratory activity were
acquired using a unique device (ProComp Infiniti System, Thought Technology Ltd)
that allows to simultaneously record different types of biological signals. This device
was also used to acquire the subjects’ electrodermal activity. Data regarding the
subjects’ cerebral activity were acquired using Electroencephalography, which is a
non-invasive technique characterized by an optimal time resolution.
We performed a correlation with the answers to the paper questionnaire. The analysis
made with different devices led to the extraction of different factors. From the ECG
they acquired the Cardiac Frequency (normalized parameter on the baseline that can
have both positive and negative values: the higher, the more stressed the subject is).
As regards the Respiration Sensor band it was possible to extract the Breath
Frequency (normalized parameter on the baseline that can have both positive and
negative values: the higher, the more stressed the subject is). By combining the
information from the ECG and the respiratory signal they obtained the Heart Rate
Variability Signal Power in the HF band (normalized parameter on the baseline that
can have both positive and negative values: the higher, the more calm the subject is),
the Heart Rate Variability Signal Power in the LF band (normalized parameter on
the baseline that can have both positive and negative values: the higher, the more
stressed the subject is) and the Coherent Power between cardiac and respiratory
activity (normalized parameter on the baseline that can have both positive and
negative values: the higher, the more stressed the subject is). Again using the
ProComp device, it was possible to get EDA, i.e. skin conductance average value
(normalized parameter on the baseline that can have both positive and negative

46
values: the higher, the more aroused the subject is). Last but not least, it was
possible to gain three different features from the EEG: MI represents the
memorization index (normalized parameter on the baseline that can have both
positive and negative values: the higher, the more the subject is capable of
memorization); AI stands for the attention index (normalized parameter on the
baseline that can have both positive and negative values: the higher, the more
attentive the subject is); PI indicates the pleasantness index (normalized parameter
on the baseline that can have both positive and negative values: the higher the
absolute value, the more intense is the feeling; in particular the subject is pleased for
positive values and not pleased for negative ones).
Despite the experiment lasted about 36 minutes and the biomedical devices recorded
thousands values, we used aggregate value for each parameter (mean). First of all,
we did not consider one of the subjects due to the missing biometrical data. So, we
worked with a maximum of 20 values. Every test was carried out considering scale
and MP3 data separately, in order not to invalidate the independence among sample
observations. Correlations were searched through a Pearson parametric test.
We started analysing the reported correlation between constructs, following the
meaning correspondence between biometric and questionnaire-declared parameters:
§ Arousal and Cardiac Frequency
§ Arousal and HF
§ Arousal and Breath Frequency
§ Arousal and LF
§ Arousal and EDA
§ Pleasure and PI
The results are shown in the following tables (see Table 5 and Table 6).

47
Table 5: Pearson Correlation Analysis between Biometric and Questionnaire-Declared Parameters for
Functional Product (Lab)

Arousal Pleasure
Pearson 0,0229 -
Cardiac Frequency Correlation
p-value 0,9329 -
Pearson 0,1220 -
HF Correlation
p-value 0,6526 -
Pearson 0,2497 -
Breath Frequency Correlation
p-value 0,3510 -
Pearson 0,1310 -
LF Correlation
p-value 0,6051 -
Pearson -0,2342 -
EDA Correlation
p-value 0,3825 -
Pearson - 0,2403
PI Correlation
p-value - 0,3699
N = 245
Significance level: p < 0,05

Table 6: Pearson Correlation Analysis between Biometric and Questionnaire-Declared Parameters for
Hedonic Product (Lab)

Arousal Pleasure
Pearson 0,3726 -
Cardiac Frequency Correlation
p-value 0,1408 -
Pearson -0,5775 -
HF Correlation
p-value 0,0151* -
Pearson 0,5090 -
Breath Frequency Correlation
p-value 0,0369* -
Pearson 0,2053 -
LF Correlation
p-value 0,4292 -
Pearson -0,0680 -
EDA Correlation
p-value 0,7954 -
Pearson - 0,1472
PI Correlation
p-value - 0,5730
N = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05
*** Implies significant at p < 0.001
** Implies significant at p < 0.01
* Implies significant at p < 0.05

48
The only significant correspondences are found in MP3’s Arousal-Breath Frequency
and Arousal-HF. Since other significance values are always under the threshold, it
cannot be acknowledged whether there is correlation among other constructs. Thus,
what our volunteers stated probably did not match with their physiological response.

5.2 Online survey

5.2.1 Preliminary analysis

Means calculation and Common Method Bias

As regards online survey, after the already explained data cleaning, we computed,
through SPSS Statistics, the mean value for each construct and we developed the
Common Method Bias analysis as well. Scale’s and MP3’s component 1 percentage
of variance are respectively 40,821 and 40,181, both lower than 50.

T-student analysis among PPN, PPD and SI constructs

The last preliminary analysis performed on the online survey was the T-Student
statistic test.
The results, shown in Table 7, are the following.

Table 7: T-student Analysis on PPN, PPD, SI between Functional and Hedonic Products (online)

Mean for
Functional Hedonic Product
Factor Product T-Statistic p-value
PPN 2,0000 5,8990 -27,288 ,0000
PPD 4,5388 5,0051 -3,1120 ,0020
SI 4,2912 4,3872 -,8410 ,4010
N functional product = 245
N hedonic product = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05

Starting from Product Perceived Nature means, computed for the two products, are
very distant from one another. The two products are perceived as different in their
nature (functional and hedonic), as expected. The Product Perceived Diagnostic
section, tells us that the information is equally clear for the two distinct products, as

49
means are very close. These two tests are statistically significant, since the p-value
are 0,000 and 0,002 respectively. Thus, our experiment is valid in these terms. On
the contrary, about Situational Involvement, even if the means of the two factors are
similar (exactly as expected), this result is not to be taken into consideration, since
the significance level is higher than 0,05.

5.2.2 Core analyses

5.2.2.1 Smart PLS analysis

PLS-SEM software (Partial Least Squared Structural Equation Modelling) allowed
us to shape an explorative, not predictive, model and to implement a second-
generation multivariate data analysis, often used in marketing researches to estimate
complex cause-effect relationship models with latent variables. Furthermore, PLS
database is capable of processing a small database (about 200 items), avoiding
assumption about data distribution and processing values without performing a mean
and so doing, being more reliable (Kwong and Wong 2013). This allowed us to
develop the analysis in the most accurate way possible.
Our Smart PLS analyses are on Arousal, Pleasure and Attitude constructs. We
focused the attention specifically on the influence of Arousal and Pleasure, the two
dimensions of emotion, on Attitude in order to examine the second research
objective. In particular we firstly analysed the measurement model where we tested
the goodness of each construct per se (reliability, validity) and then the structural
model (inner model path coefficient sizes and significance, explanation of target
endogenous variable variance and blindfolding technique).
Starting with the outer model, every item contributes, by definition, to shape the
respective latent variable. Our model is reflective (not formative), meaning that
indicators are highly correlated and interchangeable (Haenlein and Kaplan 2004;
Hair et al 2013; Petter et al. 2007), since each question of the survey gives
contribution to explain the related construct. The inner model, gives the big picture
where the two latent independent variables (Arousal and Pleasure) affect the third

50
dependent one (Attitude); but actually the analysis could be enlarged with other
elements.
The following analysis is divided in different sections according to elements and
features inspected.

Reliability

• Indicator reliability stands for each single indicator’s trustworthiness in the

construct. Looking at the square of outer loadings numbers, they should be higher
than 0,4 to be accepted and values are preferred if higher than 0,7 (Hulland
1999).

• Internal consistency reliability corresponds to the value of Cronbach’s Alpha.

Looking at the composite reliability, it should be higher than 0,6 to be accepted
and values are preferred if higher than 0,7 (Bagozzi and Yi 1988).

If we look at the results, reported in Appendix D (in Table 17 and Table 18), it can
be seen that all the reliability values are acceptable with the only exception of scale
ATItem7. Nevertheless we decided to keep it for our analysis, as for the MP3 it is
reasonable.

• Outer model loadings measure how well each item explains the correspondent
latent variable (both dependent or independent). It is measured by outer loading
numbers. The higher this value, the greater the contribution of each item to the
variable. Generally speaking, values are pretty high (reported in Appendix D),
with the only exception of the first two items of Arousal. Actually all the scales
we used had already been tested in previous studies with accuracy, making the
deleting process of items not advisable. However, we waited to investigate the
problem more deeply (e.g. with AVE calculation) before modifying any of the
constructs. Since AVE proved to be far under the threshold of acceptance, we
decided to erase permanently the first two items of Arousal construct.

51
Validity

• Convergent validity is the capability and the extent to which each factor explains
itself as a latent variable per se. It is investigated by AVE, which must be 0,5 or
higher (Bagozzi and Yi 1988).

• Discriminant validity is the capability and the extent to which each construct
rationalises something which is not explained by others. It is investigated by
AVE’s square root, which must be in any case higher than the correlations among
the latent variables (Fornell and Lacker 1981), otherwise it would imply an
overlapping of construct explanation.

Table 8: Validity Test for Functional Product Constructs of Arousal, Attitude and Pleasure (online)

Convergent Discriminant Validity

Latent N of Std.
Mean Validity [AVE’s square root]
Variable items Deviation
AVE AR AT PL
Arousal 4 3,2582 1,1007 0,5390 0,7342
Attitude 10 4,7514 1,1005 0,5330 0,3160 0,7301
Pleasure 6 4,2687 1,0743 0,6240 0,3850 0,5350 0,7899
N = 245
Significance level: p < 0,05

Table 9: Validity Test for Hedonic Product Constructs of Arousal, Attitude and Pleasure (online)

Convergent Discriminant Validity

Latent N of Std.
Mean Validity [AVE’s square root]
Variable items Deviation
AVE AR AT PL
Arousal 4 3,5265 1,0920 0,5930 0,7701
Attitude 10 4,9192 1,2328 0,7200 0,2900 0,8485
Pleasure 6 4,3544 1,0139 0,7120 0,3080 0,4970 0,8438
N = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05

Also here, we can observe from tables (Table 8 and Table 9) the acceptability of
all the above mentioned values.

VIF, Variance Inflation Factor (VIF)

VIF is calculated as “1/Tolerance”. VIF of 5 or lower (i.e., Tolerance level of 0,2 or
higher) avoids any collinearity problem (Hair et al., 2011). This exists when
variables should be eliminated, merged into one, or simply have a higher-order latent

52
variable developed. Looking at our results (not reported) this problem did not
emerge, since VIF is 1,185 for scale and 1,105 for MP3.

After assessing the goodness of constructs, we will focus on the existing relationship
among variables and the predictive capability of the model.

Inner model path coefficient sizes and significance

Inner model path coefficient sizes assess how well each independent variable
predicts the dependent one, i.e. how much the dependent is embedded in the others.
It is measured by path coefficients and it is statistically significant depending on the
p-value computed with Bootstrapping.

• Bootstrapping analysis is performed with a number of bootstrap samples of

5,000, as recommended by Hair (2011). These subsamples are drawn from the
initial sample with substitution: every time an item is randomly picked from the
sampling population, it is restored to the sampling population before the
following observation is drawn with a replacement mechanism. The main idea
was to investigate the statistical significance of Arousal/Attitude and
Pleasure/Attitude linkages (see Table 10 and Table 11).

Table 10: Inner Model Analysis for Functional Product (online)

Path Coefficient Std. Deviation f2

Arousal à Attitude 0,1240* 0,0530 0,0190
Pleasure à Attitude 0,4860*** 0,0520 0,2840
R2 Q2
Attitude 0,2990 0,1390
N = 245
Significance level: p < 0,05
*** Implies significant at p < 0.001
** Implies significant at p < 0.01
* Implies significant at p < 0.05

53
Table 11: Inner Model Analysis for Hedonic Product (online)

Path Coefficient Std. Deviation f2

Arousal à Attitude 0,1520 (n.s.) 0,0810 0,0280
Pleasure à Attitude 0,4510*** 0,0850 0,2510
R2 Q2
Attitude 0,2680 0,1900
N = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05
*** Implies significant at p < 0.001
** Implies significant at p < 0.01
* Implies significant at p < 0.05

The inner model suggests that Pleasure has the strongest effect on Attitude (0,486 for
scale and 0,451 for MP3), followed by Arousal (0,124 for scale and 0,152 for MP3).
The hypothesized path relationship between Pleasure and Attitude is always
statistically significant, since p-values are lower than 0,05. On the other hand, if for
the scale the relationship between Arousal and Attitude is statistically significant as
well, this is not verified in the MP3 section.
To sum up and simplify the results see Table 12.
Table 12: Independent Variables Impact on Attitude (online)

Functional Product Hedonic product

Arousal à Attitude Significant impact No significance
Pleasure à Attitude Significant impact Significant impact

Thus we can conclude that Pleasure is always a moderately strong predictor of

Attitude, while Arousal behaves like that only in the scale case.

Explanation of target endogenous variable variance

Explanation of target endogenous variable variance is the percentage of the variance,
in the dependent variable, explained by the independent variables. It is determined by
the coefficient of determination R2; the higher this value, the greatest the accuracy of
the model. The coefficient of determination, R2 (also reported in Table 10 and Table
11), is 0,299 for scale and 0,268 for MP3 as regards the Attitude endogenous latent
variable. This means that the two latent variables (Pleasure, Arousal) moderately
explain 29,9% and 26,8% respectively of the variance in Attitude.

54
We believe such result is acceptable for an explorative research, investigating
consumer behaviours. Dealing with topics as emotions and feelings is not
straightforward, so we can accept these relatively low values.

Blindfolding
Blindfolding analysis evaluates the predictive relevance of the model, with omission
distance D of 6 for the scale and 7 for the MP3. The parameter Q² is called predictive
relevance and represents a measure of the extent to which the model foresees the data
of absent cases. Blindfolding consists in removing one case at time and every time, it
computes again the model parameters: the omitted values are predicted following
this criterion. With Q² > 0 the model has predictive relevance while Q² ≈ 0 or Q² < 0
shows a model lacking of predictive relevance (Hair et al., 2011). The analysis
allowed to know whether the model had a predictive relevance or not.
Running the software, we obtained Q² of 0,139 and 0,190 for the scale and MP3
respectively, so they are both suitable.

To sum up the most relevant information, obtained through all these analyses, can be
inferred by the following pictures (Figure 5 and Figure 6). They were obtained
through Smart PLS Software and they refer respectively to functional and hedonic
product.

55
Figure 5: Smart PLS Analysis for Functional Product (online)

Figure 6: Smart PLS Analysis for Hedonic Product (online)

56
5.2.2.2 Scenario analysis
A scenario analysis was performed to test the different paths through which Pleasure
and Arousal may impacts on Attitude. The four scenarios corresponded to the
combination of high and low values of the two independent variables as follows in
Table 13.
Table 13: Four Scenarios

Pleasure
Low High
High 1 2
Arousal
Low 3 4

We define as high and low levels, all those values respectively over and under the
average of the variables computed for all respondents. As regards Arousal, the
average value was 3,2582 for the scale and 3,5265 for MP3. Considering Pleasure
instead, the average value was 4,2687 for the scale and 4,3544 for MP3. The
scenarios 1 and 4, which have a low value of one variable corresponding to a high
value of the other are named odd by us.
All the four scenarios make sense: experimentally respondent are distributed in all of
them. Following the logic, it may happen that:

• In Scenario 1 a person feels very aroused and has a low level of pleasure; we
expect him/her to have a strong impulse with a negative nuance;

• In Scenario 2 a person feels very aroused and has a high level of pleasure
perceived; we expect him/her to have a strong reaction with a positive
connotation;

• In Scenario 3 a person does not feel aroused and perceives low pleasure; we
expect him/her to have a neutral or negative response with a negative nuance;

• In Scenario 4 a person does not feel aroused and perceives a high level of
pleasure; we expect him/her to have a neutral or negative response with a
positive connotation.

It can be noticed that Arousal is a variable indicating the presence or absence of the
emotion per se, without any qualitative connotation. Such qualitative connotation is

57
rather given by Pleasure. This difference lies in the way the questions are built,
according to scale measurement, in the survey.
Being scenarios logically reasonable, Arousal and Pleasure could be respectively
high or low independently from one another. So, this independence should find
validation in a non-correlation between them. However, a correlation was found,
meaning that to certain levels of questionnaire-demanded Pleasure should
correspond only some other specific levels of questionnaire-demanded Arousal and
vice-versa.
Remembering that the last variable to be investigated is Attitude, a T-test was
performed among four scenarios with the aim of understanding if the mean Attitude
in a certain quadrant is different from the one in another quadrant and if such
difference is statistically significant or happens by chance. Results are the following
(see Table14 and Table 15).

Table 14: Scenario Analysis for Functional Product (online)

Attitude variation
Case Scenarios combination Attitude Means
(in absolute value)
Case 1 (2;3) (5,26 ; 4,18) 1,0800
Case 2 (2;1) (5,26 ; 4,73) 0,5300
Case 3 (2;4) (5,26 ; 5,13) n.s.
Case 4 (3;1) (4,18 ; 4;73) 0,5500
Case 5 (3;4) (4,18 ; 5,13) 0,9500
Case 6 (1;4) (4,73 ; 5,13) n.s.
N = 245
Significance level: p < 0,05

Table 15: Scenario Analysis for Hedonic Product (online)

Attitude variation
Case Scenarios combination Attitude Means
(in absolute value)
Case 1 (2;3) (5,68 ; 4,37) 1,3100
Case 2 (2;1) (5,68 ; 4,63) 1,0500
Case 3 (2;4) (5,68 ; 5,36) n.s.
Case 4 (3;1) (4,37 ; 4,63) n.s.
Case 5 (3;4) (4,37 ; 5,36) 0,9900
Case 6 (1;4) (4,63 ; 5,36) 0,7300
N = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05

58
Functional product scenario analysis
Considering significant cases only:

• In Case 1 results show that the difference between means of Attitude is the
highest;

• In Case 2 the difference in Attitude is almost negligible. A Pleasure variation for

this functional product does not push Attitude very much;

• In Case 4 the two means of Attitude are quite close. Keeping Pleasure low does
have a moderate effect on Attitude if Arousal varies;

• In Case 5 the two means of Attitude are pretty distant. If there is a low level of
Arousal, a Pleasure variation does have a higher effect on Attitude compared to
Case 2.

First of all, Case 1 is logical because, knowing that Pleasure and Arousal both
influence Attitude, moving from one extreme scenario (low Pleasure and low
Arousal) to the other (high Pleasure and high Arousal) we expected respectively the
lowest and the highest values of Attitude. At the same time for all the other scenarios,
an increase of, at least, one of the two independent variables leads to an increase in
Attitude. These preliminary results all confirm Smart PLS analysis.
Pleasure clearly succeeds in influencing more Attitude when Arousal is low, i.e.
when the consumer is not very excited (Case 5 vs Case 2). This is the most relevant
discovery, coherent with the definition of functional product, whose usage depends
deeply on the cognitive sphere and with the expected benefits. Thus, it is easier to
influence the customers’ mindset toward a functional product manipulating the
pleasantness when they feel less aroused. The specular consideration cannot be made
for a variation of Arousal because Case 3 lacks of significance.

Hedonic product scenario analysis

Considering significant cases only:

• In Case 1 results show that the difference between means is the highest;

59
• In Case 2 the two means are pretty distant. A Pleasure variation does have a
relevant effect on Attitude for high level of Arousal;

• In Case 5 the two means are quite close. If there is a low level of Arousal, a
Pleasure variation does have a lower effect on Attitude compared to Case 2;

• In Case 6 the difference is almost negligible but the higher level of Attitude
between the two scenarios corresponds with the one with a higher Pleasure.

With the aim of avoiding considerations redundancy, preliminary results confirming

Smart PLS analysis are valid also for the hedonic product. It can not be stated
anything about the impact predominance of one of the two dependent variables upon
Attitude. Case 3 and Case 4 lack of significance, so we do not know the Attitude
changings in response to Arousal variations only. We also cannot add anything
useful thanks to Smart PLS analysis, since this was the only case where a variable
had no significant effect on Attitude. Moreover, the result of Case 6 is not expected
since for hedonic products Arousal should, by definition, push more customer’s
inclinations. Though, such mismatching was already been discovered through
previous Smart PLS analysis, which pointed out only the relationship between
Pleasure and Attitude.
However something can be declared about Pleasure variations, while keeping
Arousal level constant. Pleasure succeeds in influencing more Attitude when Arousal
is high, i.e. when the consumer is very excited (Case 2 vs Case 5). This is the most
relevant discovery and it is coherent with the definition of hedonic product, whose
usage depends deeply on the affective sphere. Thus, it is easier to influence the
customers’ mind-set toward a hedonic product manipulating the pleasantness when
they feel more aroused.
To conclude, it is important to stress that distances in means were simplified in a
qualitative way (e.g. pretty distant, quite close, almost negligible) not considering the
actual deltas, which are different from product to product. Moreover, the terminology
does not reflect linearly a proportional gap from case to case. For example as regards
the scale, Case 1’s means differ by 1,08 while Case 2’s by 0,53 and Case 4’s by 0,55.
Thus in this example Case 2 and Case 4 difference is not very relevant.

60
Comparing functional and hedonic products
Difference in Attitude means between the hedonic and functional product in the same
scenario was computed. The aim was to validate previous tests and discover if there
is a statistically significant gap between the results in the four different quadrants
depending on the different nature of the two products.
Simplifying the concept, Attitude should be higher in a certain scenario for hedonic
products compared to Attitude of functional goods. Results are reported in the
following Table (Table 16).

Table 16: Scenario Analysis between Functional and Hedonic Products (online)

Means for
Scenario
(Functional Product ; Hedonic Product)
Scenario 1 n.s.
Scenario 2 (5,26 ; 5,68)
Scenario 3 n.s.
Scenario 4 n.s.
N functional product = 245
N hedonic product = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05

The Attitude average value as regards scale was 4,7514, while considering MP3 it
was 4,9192. Analysing the only significant test results, Scenario 1, first it can be
observed that the two means are both higher than their respective Attitude average.
This result was expected because it is considered the extreme positive quadrant.
Besides, MP3’s average is higher than scale’s. This confirms the rapture generated
by hedonic products and previous results as well.

5.2.2.3 Competitive models

The lack of significance in Arousal-Attitude relationship for the hedonic product
generated the idea of testing potential competitive models. Such hint also stemmed
from the nature of Pleasure, which gives a positive or negative connotation to
Arousal, as proved by the previous scenario analysis. So, it goes without saying that
Pleasure could influence the impact of Arousal on Attitude as a confounding
variable. However we also tested the opposite, less logic, case (Arousal influencing
the impact of Pleasure). Moreover, also the scenario analysis led to a reflection on

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which variable could vary, depending on the other. The models tested are represented
in the following pictures (Figure 7 and Figure 8).

Figure 7: First Competitive Attitude Formation Model

Figure 8: Second Competitive Attitude Formation Model

No significant relationship is found in neither of the two models. This paragraph was
inserted in order to underline that such representation has already been tested, so
future researches must avoid to focus on this kind of model.

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6 Discussion and implications

6.1 Results and discussion

Our research led to some new results (marked with letters from a. to f.), which we
would like to expose and consequently discuss.

Related to objective 1: investigating the existence of correlations.

a. The only significant correspondences are found between MP3’s questionnaire-
declared Arousal with Breath Frequency and MP3’s questionnaire-declared
Arousal with Heart Rate Variability Signal Power. The fact that links are found
only with MP3’s Arousal may be because only such relationships exist or due to
some approximations in the analysis. These imprecisions might be because:
i. Biometric variables are generally time dependent, while Arousal effect
lasts longer in time. There could have been approximations in the
consideration of physiological measurement: using the average calculated
on thousands of data collected reduces the information. That is because
biometrical values strongly vary according to the phase and moment in
which they are recorded;
ii. There was an insufficient number of data due to a reduced number of
subjects;
iii. Biometrical parameters mirrors different constructs: their usage could
have been incorrect for our research, although they were the more
appropriate to be selected according to literature (Vecchiato 2010);
iv. People were not sincere in fulfilling the questionnaire, lying about their
level of Arousal or they were actually unaware of their level of Arousal
and incapable of declaring it in the questionnaire.
Related to objective 2: testing the hypothesized Attitude model.
b. Pleasure is always a moderate predictor for Attitude in both functional and
hedonic products with a higher extent compared to Arousal. So, only Pleasure is
confirmed to be an Attitude-influencing construct.
c. Arousal is a moderate predictor for Attitude only for the functional product. This
discovery denies previous research by Kempf (1999), which stated that
inclination toward functional products is not influenced by human emotions. On
the other hand Arousal does not impact on Attitude as regards hedonic products.
This lead to test further models, hypothesizing for example a moderating effect
of Arousal on the relationship between Pleasure-Attitude.
In conclusion, we can define our model tested as a good starting point for
understanding Attitude formation, which must be further investigated since our
model explains only a small percentage of it.

Related to objective 3: investigating the relationship between Arousal and Pleasure

and their combined impact on Attitude. It must recalled that Pleasure represents a
more rational construct if compared to Arousal, in fact the former is shaped in the
brain and measured though EEG, while the latter reflects a bodily response.
d. For functional product, a variation of Pleasure generates a higher variation of
Attitude when Arousal is low. This occurs because the effect of Pleasure may be
facilitated when a person is not involved with a bodily reaction.
e. Pleasure variation shows major impact when Arousal is high in the case of the
hedonic product. In this case the effect of Pleasure may be facilitated when a
person is involved with a bodily reaction.
f. Considering the same conditions (high Arousal and high Pleasure), greater
Attitude is found for the hedonic product.
It is necessary to remember that moving from low to high levels of Pleasure, Attitude
increases and that it responds differently to Pleasure variations depending on the
level of Arousal and on the product nature. In the scenario of high Arousal and high
Pleasure, the highest variation of Attitude is in correspondence of the hedonic
product.

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6.2 Implications

6.2.1 Theoretical implications

The most relevant theoretical implication is that the model examined, which
hypothesized an explanatory relationship between Arousal and Pleasure toward
Attitude, has been validated concerning functional products. In the future, it is
recommended to use such model and further explore other possible variables that
may impact on Attitude, which resulted to be only explained at about 30% by our
independent factors. As regards hedonic product instead, researchers must wonder
what kind of relationship (if there is any) bonds Arousal and Attitude. Indeed, our
model, even if able to explain attitude better than alternative models tested, where
one of the two dependent variables acted as a moderator, seems not to explain such
relationship.

6.2.2 Methodological implications

The most significant implication as regards methodology is having inspired future
researches in combining the supervision of biometric parameter with declared ones.
In fact, even if the potential for Neuromarketing discoveries has already been
detected, such union had not been exploited in marketing field yet. Our researches
conveyed the idea of continuing studies in this sense: trying to investigate costumers’
attitude in a way to save money (deleting the costly methodologies that do not
convey value to the inquiry) and be effective (understanding precisely how to
measure biometric and declared variables).
From our research stemmed some improvements on methodology. First scholars
should analyse different biometric variables that may assess different constructs (as
we did with Arousal). Second they had rather fraction in time questionnaires data
collection: our 36 minutes experiment gained a great load of biometric information,
which could be bond to the exact moment in which they were detected; while
declared variables, although numerous, lacked time resolution and corresponded to
just one moment of the laboratory experience. Thus, in order to have more precise

65
declared measurement, which can relate more easily with biometrical ones, for
example many mini-questionnaires could be handed out at the end of each single
phase of the experiment.
We developed a new useful protocol to run Neuromarketing researches also as
regards the Biomedical Engineering methodologies. Indeed, from a more
methodological point of view, this approach offers the possibility to simultaneously
record different types of biological signals having each one its peculiarities (e.g. time
resolution). Moreover, all the recorded signals can be easily synchronized with all
the events of interest in order to perform a multivariate analysis restricted to a
specific event.

6.2.3 Managerial implications

Nowadays, in order to have a complete overview on customer mindset, both self-
reported and biometrical materials are necessary: these measures convey different
information that must be jointly considered when assessing a marketing effort.
Also considering that the aim of marketers is being able to measure intentions and
gathering needed information in a not invasive and unbiased way, and to reduce time
and costs, our protocol gives a contribution. It allows to use simple and not invasive
instruments, bias is avoided thanks to the match of measurement of different nature
and moreover time and costs savings are improved thanks to the knowledge collected
during the research.
Moreover, we created a research context that may simulate reality. So doing, we
enriched the knowledge about consumers’ attitude. In fact, marketers are enabled to
push attitude differently depending on the nature of the product. In general, the more
a company is able to heighten arousal and pleasure in a consumer, the more it will be
able to generate attitude in him/her. Marketers are now able to know that customers
are more receptive to pleasure when arousal is low. It is less useful to spend money
on making clients aroused if the product does not please them than to make them
appreciate the products even if not aroused. While, if dealing with hedonic products,
an increase of pleasure raises attitude more when arousal is high. So, it is important
not only to convey pleasantness to the product, but also to make customers excited.

66
7 Future developments
Although this research investigated the relationship between biometrical and
declared variables and among declared variables, the focus of the analysis was
limited to an online context only, so our first suggestion is to implement a similar
study in other channels. The subject could be monitored for example while using the
product tested or while seeing it on an advertisement or social media.
Another interesting aspect to understand would be supervising the subject reaction to
the product right after being exposed to the marketing message and after some time.
Always linked to this topic, attitude can be continuously observed throughout time,
along with the memory of the experience linked to the product.
We did not distinguish the reactions of subjects according to their sex, but for the
marketing field it could be useful to understand how and if sex influences how the
message is absorbed and re-elaborated.
If a research is interested in discovering people response on a sensorial dimension, it
makes sense to examine products with items that involve five senses. For example
we can imagine monitoring subjects while smelling, touching and tasting a
polyvalent product as a biscuit. Behaviours recorded may influence attitude more
than in our experiment, leading to the discovery of other variables affecting it.
Furthermore, Neuroscience opens up avenues for better understanding of cultural
differences and similarities among different populations in the acknowledgement of a
marketing message.
For our experiment, we used four different devices. Future research could also
incorporate some other psychophysiological techniques: with regard to the
instruments used, the analysis could be enlarged and enriched thanks to the
utilization of other kind of tools, for example monitoring facial expression, micro eye
reactions, oxygen consumption or alveolar ventilation.
Our research relies on biometrical data, which are obtained as average values among
the thousands recorded: this can be considered a point of weakness of our analysis.
So, our suggestion for future deepening is to perform the analogous research
considering more punctual declared values, which should be requested with the
questionnaire during the different phases of the experiment. So more precise data
would be combined with biometric measurements.
This work has some limitations also regarding possible drawbacks related to how
volunteers reacted to products. Two main phenomena must be neutralized in order to
have reliable results: anchoring and the I-already-have-the-product effect. The
former deals with people tendency to stick to their previous opinions, so that they
declare something just to be coherent with previous answers even if they do not
believe in what they state. Another case occurs if the volunteer already possesses the
product shown: even if he/she may find it attractive or pleasant, he/she will never
have an attitude to buy. This was not taken into account in our study, so that this kind
of experiments requires more study and validation before consistent results can be
ensured.
Since our research found only few correlations, among the parameters tested, it
would be recommended to increase the number of biometric parameters to be bond
to the self-reported ones.
Besides, as in this kind of experiment we are collecting a huge amount of biometrical
parameters, we suggest for the future many shorter questionnaires distributed at the
end of every micro-phase of the laboratory experiment. So, the portioning of records
collection can be helpful for future researches to obtain more detailed results,
because biometric data would not be smoothed over with just one average.
If we think about our two-sided product categorization (hedonic and functional), the
increased richness of models and interpretations, resulting from adding product
category levels, would significantly advance our understanding about components
influencing consumers’ attitude.
Lastly, another point to be deeply discussed is the ethical dilemma that lies in
Neuromarketing researches. Is it fair to gain insights about the product attitude and
purchasing behaviour through intrusive machineries in order to find a way to create
irresistible marketing campaigns? Are people made more vulnerable in this way?
Does Neuromarketing restrict free will and customers’ ability to make a decision?
Does Neuromarketing invade privacy illegitimately? How far can we go in terms of

68
obtaining intimate information from the consumer? To what extent is it important to
use these less invasive methodologies to extract biometric information?
In conclusion, our findings, although having some limitations, should encourage and
facilitate further testing of postulations in this stream of research.

69
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9 Appendix

9.1 Appendix A

9.1.1 Marketing Instruments

I N - DEPTH INTERVIEW
Classification of method
Instrument for qualitative, based on questioning, verbal method.
Description
In-depth interview is typically a one-to-one discussion.
Features
It is an alternative to focus group, used differently depending on the areas of application.
Advantages
It is less constrained in time and location: interviewees do not have to be present at the same time in
the same location. It is also more private, since the discussion may involve delicate issues.
Limits
They are the same of focus group and besides more time and money are required.

F OCUS GROUP
Classification of method
Instrument for qualitative, based on questioning, verbal method.
Description
Focus group method involves getting a group of people who fit the demographic target, to discuss the
(open-ended) research questions designed by the researching part under a moderator’s guidance.
Features
It’s an evolution of personal interviews. It involves potential customers, common people, not skilled
experts, because the latters may have some problems, not experienced by customers. The value is in
the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewed. The role of moderator is let people
speaking, start asking a very general question and then dragging deeper into their minds. The
objective, with a group of 6-10 individuals, is to collect their responses favouring the interaction. It
should not involve more than 10 people because a well-managed focus group last maximum 90
minutes so it’s difficult to deal with more subjects in this short time However it is not advisable to act
with less than 6 people, because the aim is to stimulate interaction: with less than 6 individuals maybe
one could monopolize the discussion and lead other opinions.
Advantages
A single focus group is cheaper than a single survey but it could be inefficient. The cost of 4/5 focus
group is the same of a survey but in order to do more focus groups many moderators are needed. It is
not possible to use the same moderator for all focus groups.
Limits
The ways of asking question make people answer in different ways. Time, pressure and the presence
of a dominant subject may have interferences in reports. The method is not ideal to know the way a
person feels because it’s difficult to describe emotional experiences.

O NLINE FOCUS GROUP

Classification of method
Instrument for qualitative, based on questioning, verbal method.
Description
Online Focus Group is a particular kind of Focus Group, developed through online devices.
Features
The general idea of focus group has been applied in various forms with the use of Internet. Webcam
interview, sample environment or usability tests, online discussion groups/forums and social media
conversation are some example of this new use of focus group.
Advantages
With Online Focus Groups, companies have the advantage of being able to exploit much higher
flexibility and a larger sample, to collect qualitative feedback in similar fashion as focus group does. It
is possible to understand social dynamics and follow Internet dynamics also with greater flexibility.
Limits
There is not the same, in-person interaction of the classical focus group. Moreover, there could be also
self-selection bias because only people interested in something may speak and it is generally difficult
to attract people and make them interested in a matter that is not part of their interests. People can say
something different from what actually think leading to a result which is different than expected.

S URVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
Classification of method
Instruments for quantitative, based on questioning, verbal methods.
Description
Survey collects data from a sample group, which represents the target population.
Features
Survey can be applied for customer satisfaction, brand equity and price sensitivity research. This
method is used for product attributes research to investigate what people think about features of a new
model or good. It can help in segmentation process, identifying factors of connection among people.
It can be developed through in-person contact, telephone, e-mail or online.
Advantages
This method is the most widespread and cost effective; results are available in a reasonable time.
Limits
Ways of asking question make people answer in different ways. Time and pressure and the presence
of a dominant subject might interfere. This method is not the best to know the way a person feels
because it is difficult to describe emotions and experiences.

E THNOGRAPHIC STUDY
Classification of method
Instruments for qualitative, based on observation, behavioural methods.
Description
Ethnography observes customers in their normal activities and listens to them in a non-directed way,
instead of asking specific or practical questions. The person who observes is in the environment but
he/she is not part of it.
Features
Ethnography studies want to understand how people live their lives. It is the most important tool to
discover something about people’s behaviour.
Advantages
Ethnography can generate more accurate and objective results. Ethnographic research, although
appears inefficient, could be insightful in contexts such as, how customers would use a new product
and what this product means to their lives. The goal of ethnographic research is to see people’s
behaviour on their environments, not the company or researcher’s. Ethnography is increasingly
applied in various areas of customer behaviour research.
Limits
Setting up such research could be costly and time consuming.

E XPERIMENT
Classification of method
Instruments for quantitative, based on observation, behavioural and psychological methods.

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Description
Experiment research collects data from controlled field or within designed environment. Through
manipulation of at least one variable, the researchers observe customers’ reactions to different stimuli.
If result changes, just modifying one variable, the effect is imputable to this variable.
Features
Experiment could be applied for: A/B testing (communication campaign), product attribute research,
price sensitivity.
Advantages
Experiment is complementary to survey because if in surveys people say something, here, you can
observe what people actually do.
Limits
Setting up experiments could be, costly and time consuming.

9.1.2 Biometric instruments

EEG ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
CNS measures for non hemispheric brain wave analysis (I) or for hemispheric lateralization (II).
Description
Measurement of variations in the frequency of electrical activity in the brain for non-hemispheric
analysis and of differences of electrical activity in two brain hemispheres in hemispheric
lateralization. It uses a cap with electrodes that are placed on the head of the test subject. Neurons
with stimulus fire and produce tiny electrical current with multiple patterns of frequencies called
brainwaves (Morin, 2011).
Features
Used, the first time, in 1920, by Hans Berger. It was the first device which allowed researchers to
apprehend and explore the internal functioning of the brain. Widespread in 70s it investigates
responses to advertising, packaging and branding stimuli. It could be a measure for pleasure, arousal,
attention, memory, information processing.
Advantages
It is valid for cognitive information processing (I). It is a non-invasive technique, cheaper and more
convenient (in comparison with fMRI), faster (in comparison with fMRI) acquisition of information.
Limits
It does not have good spatial resolution: it cannot precisely locate where the neurons are firing in the
brain (Morin, 2011). It is not very reliable, not applicable in complex context and influenced by the
settings (I, II). Reliability depends on settings (II), there is lack of generalizability (II) and low
exploratory power (II). As hemispheric lateralization the results depend on the placement of
electrodes.

SSPT STEADY - STATE PROBE TOPOGRAPHY

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
CNS measures for non-hemispheric brain wave analysis and for hemispheric lateralization.
Description
Measurement of variations in the frequency of electrical activity in the brain for non-hemispheric
analysis and of differences of electrical activity in two brain hemispheres in hemispheric
lateralization.
Features
It can be considered as an evolutionary version of EEG.
Advantages
It offers fast and accurate measurement of cortical activity in response to visual inputs. The
advantages are the same as for EEG.

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Limits
Disadvantages are the same as for EEG.

PET POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods Analysis CNS, Brain
imaging analysis.
Description
It is based on an injection of radioactive substance to monitor activation effects.
Features
Is should measure pleasure, arousal, attention, memory, information processing.
Advantages
There is capability to monitor different phenomena (brain blood flow, volume, oxygen percentage).
Limits
It is a very costly method, uncomfortable for the subject, non-medical use, difficult to use for
numerous subjects.

FMRI FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
CNS, Brain imaging analysis.
Description
It monitors the changes of blood flow in the brain (BOLD, blood oxygen level dependant).
Features
Brain is scanned in less than three second, with a particular stimulus, such as an advertisement, some
areas of brain receive more oxygenated blood flow than normal. The fMRI results showed that
cigarette warnings -informing smokers about risk of emphysema, heart disease and host or chronic
conditions- stimulate an area of the smokers’ brains and labels encouraged the smokers to light up a
cigarette.
Advantages
It is non-invasive technique, there is a good balance between temporal and spatial resolution. Spatial
resolution 10 times better than EEG (Morin, 2011).
Limits
It is expensive (in comparison with EGG) and the temporal resolution is slower than EEG and MEG
ones (Morin, 2011).

MEG MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods Analysis CNS, Brain
imaging analysis.
Description
It records the magnetic fields of the brain and that brain activity is a function of electrochemical
signals between neurons.
Features
It emerged in the mid-sixties. The best way is to use MEG to measure activity in known areas or
which is expected to be produced in a specific task, rather than used for exploratory experiments.
Advantages
It is a non-invasive technique with excellent temporal resolution and a better spatial resolution (than
EEG).
Limits
Very expensive it is not a good method to observe sub cortical areas as best recorded brain activity of
the cortex.

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P UPILLOMETRICS
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
ASN, Pupillary response.
Description
It measures temporary changes in pupil size.
Features
It is used in response of visual stimuli to discover the affective responses. In the 60s and 70s it spread
to test the effectiveness of advertisement. It is underused beside its potentiality. Measure for pleasure,
arousal, attention, memory, information processing.

Advantages
It is robust to environmental disturbances.
Limits
It is not easy the link between the pupil dilation and the causes among the possible ones.

G ALVANOMETER DEVICE
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
ASN, Electro dermal analysis.
Description
Galvanic skin response or SCR skin conductance response.
Features
EDA values correlate with high arousal.
Advantages
Low cost, straightforward.
Limits
The validity and the accuracy depend on the electrode placement.

A UDIO A DAPTED C OMPUTER E QUIPMENT

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
ASN, Voice Pitch analysis.
Description
Vocal cords fluctuations in human speech.
Features
It has been used in the 70s and nowadays with digital evolution the voice parameters can be analysed
through computerized analysis. It is a measurement tool for arousal.
Advantages
It requires only oral responses and audio recording apparatus. The apparatus is not interfering and
should not influence the test.
Limits
The validity and the use are not jet well established.

ECG ELECTROCARDIOGRAM
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
ASN, Heart rate response.

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Description
Electrical discharges associated with the muscle contraction of the heart.
Features
It started to be used in the ‘80s and it is valid for attention analysis.
Advantages
Results are not influenced by external disturbances.
Limits
Changes may be evoked by multiple psychological processes.

B LOOD PRESSURE MONITOR

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
ASN Cardiovascular analysis.
Description
Variation in blood pressure or blood volume.
Features
It should measure pleasure, arousal and attention.
Advantages
Vascular activity can be easily monitored and reported.
Limits
Changes may be evoked by multiple psychological processes and results influenced by experimental
settings.

EMG ELECTRICAL MUSCLE FIBRES

Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
SNS Facial muscle activity Description It measures Electrical Contraction of facial Muscle fibres
(EMG).
Features
Used since 80s, it is a reliable measure for pleasure.
Advantages
It offers a new area of investigation.
Limits
Signals can be influenced by participants’ physical movements or bodily sensitivity.

E YE TRACKER
Classification of method
Instrument for quantitative, based on observation and psychological methods.
Analysis
SNS, Eye Movement Analysis.
Description
It records number of fixations and eye movement.
Features
It has been used since 70s and it should be a measure for attention, memory, information processing.
Advantages
It offers an accurate study in real-time and contexts.
Limits
The results can be influenced by external disturbances, that can be controlled, and by participants
blinking or tear fluid.

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9.2 Appendix B
9.2.1 Products tested

Figure 9: Body Composition Monitor Scale (Functional Product)

Figure 10: MP3 (Hedonic Product)

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9.2.2 Experiment flow
Figure 11: Device Wearing and Set Up

Figure 12: Mathematical Operation Phase

Figure 13: Staring a Neutral Image

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Figure 14: Looking at the Website Information Figure 15: Looking at the Website Images

Figure 16: Filling up the Questionnaire Figure 17: Performing the P300 Test

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9.3 Appendix C
9.3.1 Questionnaire

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9.3.2 Questionnaire schema
FIRST SECTION
“For each pair, place a check mark close to the box which you believe better describes your opinion”

PRODUCT PERCEIVED NATURE (PPN)

“Would you characterize the [product] as primarily a functional product or an
entertainment/enjoyable product?”
Primarily for functional use – Primarily for entertainment use
PPN
7 items likert scale by Kempf (1999)
PRODUCT PERCEIVED DIAGNOSTIC (PPD)
“Overall, how helpful would you rate the direct [virtual] experience you just had in judging the
quality and performance of the product?”
Not helpful at all – Extremely helpful
PPD
7 items likert scale by Kempf (1999)
SECOND SECTION
SITUATIONAL INVOLVEMENT (SI)
“I was absorbed intensely in examining the product presentation”
SIitem1 Completely disagree – Disagree – Partially disagree – Neutral – Partially agree –
Agree – Completely agree
“I concentrated fully on viewing the product presentation”
SIitem2 Completely disagree – Disagree – Partially disagree – Neutral – Partially agree –
Agree-Completely agree
“My attention was focused on examining the product”
SIitem3 Completely disagree – Disagree – Partially disagree – Neutral – Partially agree –
Agree – Completely agree
7 items likert scale by Webster and Ho (1997)
AROUSAL (AR)
“Each line contains an adjective pair which you will use to rate your feelings about the product. Some
of the pairs may seem unusual, but you’ll probably feel more one-way about one side than another.
So, for each pair, place a check mark close to the adjective, which you believe better describes your
reaction to the product”.
ARitem1 Calm – Excited
ARitem2 Relaxed – Stimulated
ARitem3 Unaroused – Aroused
ARitem4 Sluggish – Frenzied
ARitem5 Dull – Jittery
ARitem6 Sleepy – Wide awake
7 point semantic differential items scales by Mehrabian and Russel (1974)
PLEASURE (PL)
“Each line contains an adjective pair which you will use to rate your feelings about the product. Some
of the pairs may seem unusual, but you’ll probably feel more one-way about one side than another.
So, for each pair, place a check mark close to the adjective, which you believe better describes your
reaction to the product”.
PLitem1 Unhappy – Happy
PLitem2 Annoyed – Pleased
PLitem3 Unsatisfied – Satisfied
PLitem4 Melancholic – Contented
PLitem5 Despairing – Hopeful
PLitem6 Bored – Relaxed
7 point semantic differential items scales by Mehrabian and Russel (1974)

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 THIRD SECTION
EXPECTANCY VALUE MODEL (EVM)
“In the following lines you will find some statements regarding the products you have just seen. For
each couple, place a check mark close to the box which you believe better describes your opinion
about the product”
Functional Product Hedonic Product
EVMitem1V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely is user friendly” Very likely
monitor is light in
weight and
dimension”
EVMitem1W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important are all – Extremely important is ease all – Extremely
reduced weight important of use in your important
and dimension in opinion?”
your opinion?”
EVMitem2V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely has catchy Very likely
monitor has design”
measurement
accuracy”
EVMitem2W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important is the all – Extremely important is the all – Extremely
measurement important design in your important
accuracy in your opinion?”
opinion?”
EVMitem3V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely has an adequate Very likely
monitor has useful price – quality
functions” ratio”
EVMitem3W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important is the all – Extremely important is the all – Extremely
presence of useful important price – quality important
functions in your ratio in your
opinion?” opinion?”
EVMitem4V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely monitor has a Very likely
monitor has a high memory
high memory capacity”
capacity”
EVMitem4W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important is the all – Extremely important is the all – Extremely
memory capacity important memory capacity important
in your opinion?” in your opinion?”
EVMitem5V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely is light in weight Very likely
monitor has an and dimension”
adequate pricing”
EVMitem5W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important is the all – Extremely important are all – Extremely
price in your important reduced weight important
opinion?” and dimension in
your opinion?”

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EVMitem6V “I think the body Very unlikely – “I think the MP3 Very unlikely –
composition Very likely is functional” Very likely
monitor long lasts
in time”
EVMitem6W “How much Not important at “How much Not important at
important is the all – Extremely important is the all – Extremely
long lasting important functionality in important
capacity in your your opinion?”
opinion?”
7 point items likert scale by Ajzen (1991)
FOURTH SECTION
“Each line contains an adjective pair, for each pair, place a check mark close to the adjective, which
you believe better describes your opinion”.
ATTITUDE (AT)
“For me personally, adopting this product in the next six months can be described as”.
ATitem1 Unenjoyable – Enjoyable
ATitem2 Unpleasant – Pleasant
ATitem3 Uncomfortable – Comfortable
ATitem4 Unattractive – Attractive
ATitem5 Unappealing – Appealing
ATitem6 Punishing – Rewarding
ATitem7 Foolish – Wise
ATitem8 Harmful – Beneficial
ATitem9 Useless – Useful
ATitem10 Bad – Good
7 point items likert scale by Bagozzi and colleagues (2001)
FIFTH SECTION
MEMORIZATION (ME)
“Among the following pictures of products, mark the one you think you have seen in the website”
MEitem1 Picture 1, 2, 3
MEitem2 Picture 1, 2, 3
MEitem3 Picture 1, 2, 3
SIXTH SECTION
DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Question1 Sex information (Male; Female)
Question2 Age
Question3 Qualification (Junior High School; High School; Bachelor Degree; Master Degree;
PhD)
Question4 Employment
Question5 Nationality

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9.3.3 Online survey sample
Sex Male Female
49,01% 50,99%
Age Min Average Max
17 36 73
Junior High High School Bachelor Master PhD
Study Title
School Degree Degree
2,91% 28,16% 33,50% 29,61% 5,83%
Employment Varied
Nationality Predominantly Italian

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9.4 Appendix D
9.4.1 Reliability analysis tables
Table 17: Reliability Analysis for Functional Product (online)

Latent N of Std. Indicator Composite

Mean Indicators Loadings
Variable items Deviation Reliability Reliability
ARitem1 - -
ARitem2 - -
ARitem3 0,757 0,5730
Arousal 4 3,2582 1,1007 0,823
ARitem4 0,736 0,5417
ARitem5 0,769 0,5914
ARitem6 0,671 0,4502
ATitem1 0,853 0,7276
ATitem2 0,846 0,7157
ATitem3 0,598 0,3576
ATitem4 0,681 0,4638
ATitem5 0,788 0,6209
Attitude 10 4,7514 1,1005 0,918
ATitem6 0,705 0,4970
ATitem7 0,569 0,3238
ATitem8 0,731 0,5344
ATitem9 0,698 0,4872
ATitem10 0,776 0,6022
PLitem1 0,807 0,6512
PLitem2 0,864 0,7465
PLitem3 0,849 0,7208
Pleasure 6 4,2687 1,0743 0,908
PLitem4 0,776 0,6022
PLitem5 0,671 0,4502
PLitem6 0,758 0,5746
N = 245
Significance level: p < 0,05

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Table 18: Reliability Analysis for Hedonic Product (online)

Latent N of Std. Indicator Composite

Mean Indicators Loadings
Variable items Deviation Reliability Reliability
ARitem1 - -
ARitem2 - -
ARitem3 0,756 0,5715
Arousal 4 3,5265 1,0290 0,854
ARitem4 0,753 0,5670
ARitem5 0,758 0,5746
ARitem6 0,813 0,661
ATitem1 0,86 0,7396
ATitem2 0,868 0,7534
ATitem3 0,858 0,7362
ATitem4 0,859 0,7379
ATitem5 0,905 0,8190
Attitude 10 3,9192 1,2328 0,963
ATitem6 0,847 0,7174
ATitem7 0,779 0,6068
ATitem8 0,794 0,6304
ATitem9 0,89 0,7921
ATitem10 0,82 0,6724
PLitem1 0,89 0,7921
PLitem2 0,836 0,6989
PLitem3 0,877 0,7691
Pleasure 6 4,3544 1,0138 0,937
PLitem4 0,892 0,7957
PLitem5 0,813 0,661
PLitem6 0,745 0,5550
N = 198
Significance level: p < 0,05

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9.5 Appendix E
9.5.1 Papers summary
Author Richard P. Bagozzi, Mahesh Gopinath, Prashanth U. Nyer
Title The Role of Emotions in Marketing
Keywords -
Category Emotions
Type Theoretical
Objectives Conveying an overview on the existing theories of emotions in marketing and their
influence on consumer’s responses and on cognitive processes.
Framework We can identify six arguments, as it follows.
1. Theories of emotions, some definitions are provided, to distinguish
emotions from affect, mood and attitudes, in terms of intensity, the way in which
they arise and their representation in memory. Moreover, several visions are
presented, for example Roseman’s Appraisal Theory of Emotion, or Oatley and
Johnson-Laird’s communicative theory of emotions and lastly Frijda and Bagozzi
are worth citing.
2. Measurement of emotions could rely on evidence, subjective feelings,
body language, micro-facial expressions, physiological responses, action tendencies
and overt actions. Each author found his/her own measurement scale for emotions,
based on several factors or indexes, which went from three (Edell and Burke) to a
94-item scale by Holbrook and Batra. Another interesting framework is the
circumplex structure of emotions, developed differently by Russell and, Watson
and Teller, according to whom, emotions can be described around two orthogonal
axes (high positive affect/low positive affect): the closer emotions are, the more
alike they will be. It is also important for marketing to decide whether to use
unipolar or bipolar items to measure emotions: the authors of this paper recommend
to use the former, in order to be sure not to neglect different emotional responses.
3. Arousal is believed to play an essential role in emotions and appraisal
theories have not been comprehensive in including the concept of arousal in their
framework. Arousal is an important component of emotions and there are at least
five arousal systems in the brain, which contribute to the whole emotive
experience. LeDoux stated that actually arousal make cells more sensitive to the
incoming signals, meaning that people tend to be more prone to receive and hold
back stimuli in this status. Bagozzi had also found out that high arousal increase the
halo effect of positive beliefs, so that emotions can be turned on automatically and
elaborated unconsciously.
4. Emotions as markers, mediators and moderators of consumer responses.
One example of use of emotions as an index of the efficacy of an advertisements is
the SEVA framework by Batra and Ray, who identified three positive affective
responses (surgency-elation-vigor/activation, deactivation and social affection
feelings) to be used along with six cognitive responses to study the impact of
commercials on potential customers. Then, a major distinction between
advertisements is underlined: thinking advertisements, which contains more factual
information or practical consequences of the product/service usage and feeling
advertisements, which are on the contrary mainly related to the emotions and the
experiences that the customer will go through. In particular attitude toward the
advertisement is related to the attitude toward the brand, and actually the former is
believed to influence the latter. Furthermore, some acknowledgements were
presented: advertisements cause greater influence for durable goods, may influence
brand beliefs, the repetition of a message is able to administer feelings and brand
name can be linked in memory to feelings toward commercials.

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 5. The starting point is the effect of emotion: the emotional state in which a
person is (mood) can really influence the information processing phase, for
example in terms of information retaining, evaluation process, creative thinking.
Focusing just on some of the elements defined by emotions: these are able to
impact on memory, in a way that people in a positive mood tend to recall more
easily positive than negative stimuli and vice versa (retrieval effect); also positive
attitude at the moment of message receiving encourages positive recalling in future
(encoding effect); a message is recalled better when the person is in the same mood
of when he/she received the message (state-dependent learning effect); negative
affect is proven to have little effect on the recall of negative information but the
contrary is not true (asymmetric effect of positive and negative moods). Another
argument presented in this paragraph is that although satisfaction is a central issue
in marketing, it is not clear to theorists under which condition this emotion comes
in a unique way to customers because its distinction from other kind of positive
emotions (e.g. joy, gladness, delight, enjoyment) has not been investigated yet.
Secondly another effect of emotion is that the emotional state in which a person is
(mood) can really influence decision and behaviour direction phase. Emotions are
found to be interpersonal or group based responses to a stimulus, thus an individual
reaction may be generated by more complex dynamics.
Methodology -
Results Emotions are omnipresent in marketing, they have an impact on information
processing, they measure the outcomes of marketing stimuli, start the goal setting
phase, endorse goal-directed activities and measure customer welfare.
Implication For research purposes, it is really important to further deepen the subject of the
impact of emotions, affects, moods, attitudes toward decision making, since such
knowledge can improve the efficacy of marketing strategies. It could be useful, for
example understanding how to measure arousal; how emotions impact the encoding
and storage of information; whether emotions are universal or not; when it could be
useful to use self-report appropriately.

Author Regan L. Mandryk, Kori M. Inkpen and Thomas W. Calvert

Title Using psychophysiological techniques to measure user experience with
entertainment technologies
Keywords -
Category Emotions
Type Experimental
Objectives Testing the efficacy of physiological measurements as tools aiming at giving an
evaluation of the user experience when exposed to collaborative entertainment
technologies (i.e. video games) through two experiments.
Framework In the first paragraph a brief introduction is provided, explaining the importance of
exploiting new technologies in order to foster interaction and enhance
communication between players in co-located, collaborative environments.
The approach of the research was to build a hybrid game system, which leveraged
both dynamic environment and interaction. Then, some drawbacks of traditional
self-reports methods (such as questionnaires, interviews, think-aloud protocols) are
underlined, along with the need of adding some objective, physiological techniques
to have a better understanding of customer experience.
Two main conjectures of the paper are made clear: named A and B.
In the second part, the tools to measure physiology and emotions are described. In
this experiment Galvanic Skin Response, Heart Rate, Rate of Respiration and
Depth of Breath, Electromyography were used to track arousal, a differentiation
between positive and negative emotions and tension.
In the third paragraph after a short literature of physiology studies, it is presented
the desire to go beyond previous researches and face human-computer interaction

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 and entertainment domain.
In the following paragraphs, the real experiments are described. In more detail for
the first experiment: H1, H2 and H3 were testes while for the second H4, H5, H6
and H7.
After the result discussion, some hints for future work are provided and conclusions
are drawn.
Methodology Exp.1: 7 male participants from the Simon Fraser University aged 20 to 26 filled a
background questionnaire to have information on their pc and video games usage
frequency, in order to assess their capabilities. Then, volunteers were filled with the
physiological sensors, rested for five minutes and started playing a hockey game by
EA SportsTM. Each playing session lasted five minutes and one session per each
difficulty level. After each session, subjects were asked to rate the challenge,
frustration, boredom and fun on a scale from one to five and explain their answers.
Exp.2: 10 male participants aged 19 to 23 filled the same background questionnaire
of Exp.1, but this time they played in two conditions: against another player and
against the computer. After being fitted with the sensors, each subject rested for
five minutes, played the game against the computer, rested for other five minutes
and played against each other. During pauses, volunteers listened to music in order
to allow the physiological measures to return to the baseline level. After each
session, subjects were asked to fill the same final questionnaire of Exp.1.
Results Exp.1: subjective measures reported that the frustration increased along with the
difficulty of the game. However each player showed a different subjective
experience resulting in no consistent trend. So, also physiological measures were
not expected to be consistent across subjects, but generally the game level that best
matched with their expertise produced a positive game experience. Nevertheless,
there were some mistakes made by experiment operators: in general participants
responded more to the “experimental situation” than to the real manipulation.
Exp.2: subjects respond differently according to whether they play against a
computer or against a friend, in more detail volunteers preferred the former than the
latter. They experienced higher GSR and EMG values when playing against a
friend, showing more engagement, they have more fun and are less bored.
Implication Subjective data do not provide a complete overview and sufficient information in
the evaluation of user experience. Physiological measures can be exploited as
objective indicators for the assessment of collaborative play; furthermore the
physiological normalized outcomes correspond to subjective reported experience.

Author Christophe Morin

Title Neuromarketing: The New Science of Consumer Behavior
Keywords Neuromarketing; Advertising; Marketing research; Consumer behavior; fMRI;
EEG; Neuroscience.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives The paper shows a short overview of Neuromarketing evolution, instruments and
application.
Framework The paper describes the birth and evolution of Neuromarketing as new discipline
that links consumer behaviour and neuroscience studies. This need stems from the
failure of traditional methods in analysing customer needs, as they proved to be
unable to describe their feelings when exposed to a stimulus.
In the (short) history of Neuromarketing paragraph it shows the first relevant study
(Pepsi and Coca Cola research 2003) and the ethical implications.
In the following paragraph it is shown how Neuromarketing can be a solution to the
classical research method limits but that at the same time it suffers from some
drawbacks: marketers have no knowledge in neurosciences and fear ethical
implications.

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 The third section describes EEG, MEG and fMRI tools to measure physiological
responses to advertising, in particular deepening their history and reliability.
The paper ends with the implication and the forecast future evolution of
Neuromarketing. It will evolve and ethical issues will continue to arise;
nevertheless some campaigns aiming at changing people’s self-destructive
behaviours and more persuasive information could stop some bad practices such as
smoke addiction.
Methodology -
Results The paper shows the progress and success gained by studies and methodologies
regarding Neuromarketing.
Implication This new discipline shows that specific principles should apply to (but not only)
advertising messages in order to optimize the processing of information at the level
of our brain. So, it has the potential to improve the effectiveness of commercial and
cause-related advertising.

Author Milorad Milijkovic, Slavko Alčakovič

Title Neuromarketing: Marketing research future?
Keywords -
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives Explaining how Consumer behaviour and Neuroscience mix together to shape the
new discipline of Neuromarketing. Some techniques useful in this area are shown,
along with some applications.
Framework This paper examines the topic of Neuromarketing in the following way.
The first section is an introduction to Neuromarketing considering the opportunities
to limit marketing failures and lead to discover consumers’ decision process. New
tools allow discovering nervous system functioning and to go beyond subconscious
biases of traditional methods as in the case of Montague experiment, with Coca
Cola versus Pepsi.
The second section shows some techniques and three elements to define a
measurement result are (1) localization of active brain parts, (2) connectivity
between brain regions and (3) representation as processing and storing of info.
Third section discusses Neuromarketing studies already developed. In addition to
Read Montague experiment some of the cases mentioned are: Princeton University
study about short term versus delayed rewards, Mayvis and Janiszewski
demonstration of decreasing positive response to irrelevant product information,
Erk studies about attractiveness of product symbolising wealth and status and
Plassmann study about pricing. Some other cases gave noteworthy contributions
and are cited in the paper.
The last section discusses implications for the future.
Methodology -
Results The paper explained the basis of Neuromarketing and its techniques.
Neuromarketing has an incredible potential for allowing marketers to target
consumers’ desires, needs and it has become the hottest tool in marketing
nowadays.
Implication With further developments, consumers can become open books for companies, who
will be able to make people buy exactly what they want, consciously or not. The
challenge for the future is the level of regulation required to avoid unethical of
Neuromarketing techniques.

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Author Yong Jian Wang, Micheal S. Minor
Title Validity, Reliability and Applicability of Psychophysiological Techniques in
Marketing Research
Keywords -
Category Biometrics
Type Theoretical
Objectives 1. Exposing a description and commenting the psychophysiological
techniques
2. Exposing critical troubles about validity, reliability and applicability of
such tools brought forward by previous research
Framework In marketing research, consumers’ response to inputs is measured with behavioural
measures (e.g. purchasing time, amount of money spent), verbal measures, which
include self-reported valuation of intent, mind-set and feeling and finally
psychophysiological measures.
These latter provide a very unbiased evaluation of consumer reaction to a stimulus.
However, the applicability of psychophysiological tools requires having a deep
knowledge as regards: the context in which the consumer has been exposed to the
message, the physiology of the structure considered and a proper evaluation of
other kind of responses.
Ten psychophysiological measurements (non-hemispheric Brain Wave Analysis,
Hemispheric Lateralization, Pupillary Response, Electrodermal Analysis, Voice
Pitch Analysis, Heart Rate Response, Vascular Activity, Facial Muscle Activity,
Eye Movement Analysis and Brain Imaging Analysis) are described, along with a
dissertation of their validity, reliability and applicability.
Methodology -
Results Any marketing research using psychophysiological techniques should start with an
examination of subject’s cognitive response to prefabricated stimuli.
The above-described psychophysiological framework can be used in the Stimulus-
Organism-Response model with the aim of analysing “different psychological
antecedents and corresponding physiological consequences”, although a direct
relationship between a single antecedent and a single physiological consequence
cannot be inferred (Bagozzi). However, there are three findings to be underlined: a
psychological change is often complemented by some cognitive processes; a single
psychological antecedent can end up in several consequences; advertising research
dig deeper into more than one stimuli, that entail several unknown variables.
Implication There is the necessity for marketing research to determine legitimacy and reliability
and to highlight applicability for psychophysiological techniques.

Author Rami N. Khushaba, Chelse Wise, Sarath Kodagoda, Jordan Louviere, Barbara E.
Kahn, Claudia Townsend
Title Consumer neuroscience: Assessing the brain response to marketing stimuli using
electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking
Keywords Choice modelling; Electroencephalogram (EEG); Neuromarketing.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives There are two main research objectives:
1. Detecting and assess the cortical activity of the different brain regions and
the interdependencies among the Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from these
regions;
2. Offering a way to quantify the significance of different cracker features
that contribute to the product design based on mutual information.
Framework The introduction describes neuroscience disciplinary, previous studies and missing
analyses. It outlines some discovered brain activities knowledge, describing the
experiment and respective measurement techniques.

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 In section 2 and section 3 there is a definition of data collection process (emotive
EPOC-based EEG data collection, eye tracking data collection, participants) and
data analysis procedure. The following parts show results and conclusions.
Methodology The experiment is a discrete choice experiment (DCE), it requires participants to
select their preferred crackers according to shape (square, round and triangle,),
flavor (wheat, dark rye, plain) and topping (salt, poppy and plain). 18 participants
were shown 57 choice sets defined starting from 27 unique crackers; each choice
set described three choice options (crackers).
To collect EEG signals was used a commercial Emotiv EPOC wireless EEG
headset with 14 channels. In addition Tobii-Studio eye tracker system relates the
EEG data to the specific choice options (crackers).
Results • There was a synchronization phase between the left and right frontal and
occipital regions indicating interhemispheric communications during the chosen
task for the subjects;
• There was a change in the EEG power spectral activities taking a place
mainly in the frontal, temporal and occipital left regions when subjects indicated
their preferences;
• Flavours and toppings of the crackers were more relevant factors affecting
the buying decision than the shapes of the crackers as showed by higher mutual
information values achieved by almost all EEG bands power. Consequently
flavours and toppings are believed to generate more cognitive processes than
shapes.
Implication The main implication is the starting point of the paper: Neuromarketing gives the
possibility to design product fitting as much as possible with customer preferences.

Author Rafal Ohme, Dorota Reykowska, Dawid Wiener, Anna Choromanska

Title Application of frontal EEG asymmetry to advertising research
Keywords Biometric consumer research; Frontal asymmetry; EEG; Advertising; Copy testing;
Brain waves; Neuromarketing.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives The aim of the study is to identify frontal cortex activation in response to
prefabricated marketing stimuli: TV advertisements. In more detail, the final goal is
to compare selected scenes of such ads, which were previously divided in four
categories: emotional scenes, product/benefit scenes, product scenes and brand
scenes.
The idea is to identify left hemispheric dominance, which according to the adopted
theoretical model of Davidson, indicates approach reactions of respondents to
incoming stimulation. In fact, the experiment is supposed to identify the amount of
approach-withdrawal reactions in response to each of the three ads.
Framework The starting point is the need of scientific researches that go beyond classical self-
report indicators to enrich marketing research. A theoretical overview shows the
knowledge about electroencephalographic asymmetry during emotional states. Left
frontal cortex promotes desirable outcome and approach behaviour, on the other
hand right part implies withdrawal behaviour. The experiment is well defined and
the results obtained with repeated measures ANOVA and post hoc tests with
Bonferroni correction.
Methodology The experiment compared three consecutive TV advertisements of the world-
famous Sony Bravia flat screen TV (‘‘Balls”, ‘‘Paints”, and ‘‘Play-Doh”). The ads
utilize a different creative solution but are composed of an emotional part and
informational part. The research was conducted on 45 respondents (24 females, 21
males), aged 26-45 and planning to buy a TV. They were made to see three Sony
Bravia ads and 30 other distracters ads, the only task was to look carefully and pay
attention at the screen and then be interviewed. Before the exposition, the baseline

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 was measured for 15 s.
Results The results are
[H1] Comparing the emotional part of the ads :
• Significantly greater relative left frontal activation generated by the
emotional part of ‘‘Balls” ad than by the emotional part of ‘‘Play-Doh” ad and
slightly greater by ‘‘Paints” ad than by ‘‘Play-Doh” ad;
• No significant differences between ‘‘Balls” and ‘‘Paints” ads were
present;
• In comparison to the baseline value only ‘‘Balls” ad generated greater
relative left frontal activation (at a tendency level);
[H2]Comparing the informational part of the ads :
• No significant differences between the ads, however a tendency was
observed and the post hoc analysis indicated significantly greater relative left
frontal activation in ‘‘Balls” ad than in ‘‘Paints” ad and ‘‘Play-Doh” ad;
• In comparison to the baseline value ‘‘Balls” ad generated greater left
frontal activation;
[H3] Considering Product-benefit scenes :
• “Balls” ad generated greater relative left frontal activation than ‘‘Paints”
ad as well as than ‘‘Play-Doh” ad;
• In comparison to the baseline value ‘‘Balls” ad generated greater relative
left frontal activation to the product-benefit scene, whereas ‘‘Paints” ad generated
greater relative right frontal activation;
[H4] Considering Product scenes :
• No significant differences in reactions to the product exposure scenes.
• In comparison to the baseline value only ‘‘Balls” ad generated greater
relative left frontal activation to this scene;
[H5] Considering Brand scenes :
• No significant differences in reactions to brand exposure scenes between
ads;
• In comparison to the baseline only the animation, the brand scene in
‘‘Balls” ad generated greater relative left frontal activation.
Dominant reactions are present only in response to one of the tested ads – ‘‘Balls”;
so the main finding is that only one of the three similar ads performs well on the
approach dimension. Such conclusion could have not been reached with traditional
research methods, which in some cases reveal to be ineffective. Moreover, a
controversy arouses: as regards one of the three ads, the informational part
generated more approach-related reaction, which is contrary to the existing theories
on what is more or less emotionally engaging.
Implication Methodologies based on measuring brain waves activity can enrich marketing
research portfolio and help marketers to go beyond verbal declarations of their
consumers. This experiment, in particular, shows that frontal asymmetry measure
may be a diagnostic tool in examining the potential of advertisements to generate
approach related tendencies.

Author Asela A. Burgos-Campero, Jose G. Vargas-Hernandez

Title Analytical approach to neuromarketing as a business strategy
Keywords Business strategy; capacities and resources; Neuromarketing.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives This study shows advances in neuroscience and how they extend the knowledge in
important areas such as the relationship between consumer and the products, the
influence of advertising, brand perception, trust and more in general how they
define opportunities to develop a business strategy.
Framework The most important concept of the paper is that Neuromarketing techniques

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 become relevant when they provide more accurate information to create strategies
and competitive advantages. Market research, surveys and focus groups are defined
as "articulated answers" methods that cannot be used to know feelings about
products or services, for customers it is difficult to label the emotions experienced.
In addition the brain alters the original response recorded.
In addition, in the paper, some of the most important measurement methods (EEG,
FMRI, MEG and eye tracking device) are described with their advantages,
disadvantages and area of use. The blind test is described and some ethical issues
are discussed.
Methodology -
Results Neurosciences, along with traditional existing approaches, can offer companies a
solid foundation to develop a competitive strategy.
Implication Neuro-imaging studies have proven that consumers’ free will is restricted by a
number of activities that forerun conscious decisions. Consequently, in a context of
increasingly saturated market, Neuromarketing can be considered as an important
source of competitive advantage.

Author Anders Drachen, Lennart E. Nacke, Georgios Yannakakis, Anja Lee Pedersen
Title Correlation between Heart Rate, Electrodermal Activity and Player Experience in
First-Person Shooter Games
Keywords Player experience; analysis; psychophysiology; entertainment; user experience
(UX); digital games; affective gaming; human-centred design; user studies.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives The aim of the experiment is to understand whether there is a correlation between
self-reported measures of game play experience with a questionnaire and
physiological measures of arousal through the usage of tools measuring
electrodermal activity and heart rate.
Framework The paper applies psychophysiological techniques in gaming experience.
Psychophysiology investigates physiological activities resulting from psychological
manipulations.
Methodology A repeated-measures experimental method was used with three levels of one
independent variable (games) and three variables (measures) on 16 participants.
Three digital games were selected for the experiment, having shared characteristics:
first person shooter game, first person view, one character controlled. Three kind of
measures were applied to gather data and develop the analysis: self-report data
iGEQ (In-Game Experience Questionnaire), HR (heart rate) and EDA
(electrodermal activity).
In the end it was calculated Pearson’s correlation coefficient among questionnaire
values and normalized physiological data across the games and scatterplots were
computed.
Results Results indicate a correlation between psychophysiological arousal and self
reported gameplay experience. In particular HR correlates negatively with some
iGEQ dimensions (competence, immersion, flow and so on) and positively with
others, for example a low HR is indicative of players feeling tense and
disheartened. Furthermore, EDA correlates with negative affect (i.e. frustration).
However, there is no significant correlation with the challenge dimension of the
iGEQ-survey maybe due to a possible misunderstanding in the comprehension of
the questionnaire.
Implication The main result is the evidence of the application of psychophysiological measures
to user interaction with games in contexts where digital gaming allowing a pleasant
user experience is vital to the success of the game itself.
Nevertheless, additional empirical work is needed: the sample sizes should be
enlarged and other scenarios should be tested.

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Author Seunghyun Lee, Sejin Ha, Richard Widdows

Title Consumer responses to high-technology products: Product attributes, cognition, and
emotions
Keywords High-technology product; Attributes
; Cognition; 
Emotions; S–O–R framework.
Category Product
Type Experimental
Objectives This study investigates two main issues: first, high technology attributes that play a
role in consumer’s adoption of technological products and second, how they influence
consumer responses and behaviour (Approach–Avoidance behaviour) based on the
framework of Mehrabian and Russell (1974).
Framework This study proposes the analysis of consumer’s attitudes toward high-technology
products considering that they have different characteristics (i.e. shorter life cycle,
different attitudinal and behavioural responses) and crowds the market. Starting from
the study of Mehrabian and Russell (1974), proposing that when an individual
encounters a stimulus (S), he/she develops internal cognitive and emotional states (O)
which in turn determine his/her responses of approach or avoidance (R), six factors of
high-technology product attributes were analysed and grouped in three main
categories and defined as stimuli (S).

The study tested the following six hypotheses.

H1. Consumer perceptions of technology product attributes significantly influence
attitude toward technology products.
H2. Consumer perceptions of technology product attributes significantly influence
pleasure.
H3. Consumer perceptions of technology product attributes significantly influence
arousal.
H4. Attitude toward a technology product has a positive influence on consumer
approach/avoidance behaviour.
H5. Pleasure has a positive influence on consumer approach/avoidance behaviour.
H6. Arousal has a positive influence on consumer approach/avoidance behaviour.
Methodology Paper-and-pencil surveys are submitted to collect data. The questionnaire involved
five parts: (1) an introduction including the definition and examples of technology
products, (2) technology product attributes, (3) internal states of attitude, pleasure, and
arousal, (4) approach–avoidance behaviour, and (5) demographics. Respondents

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 completed the survey based on their experiences with their technology products and
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) followed.
Results High-technology product attributes effectively influence consumers' cognitive attitude
and affective states (pleasure and arousal), contributing to their approach–avoidance
behaviour. The last four stimuli have major influences on approach behaviour through
attitude (cognitive state) and pleasure (affective state).
Supplemental analysis shows that attitude and pleasure influence approach–avoidance
behaviour directly, but arousal affects approach–avoidance behaviour indirectly
through pleasure.
Five product attribute factors influence attitude, while usefulness does not. Pleasure
depends on innovativeness, visual appeal the degree of uniqueness of the product and
self-expression but not usefulness and ease of use. Arousal comes from
innovativeness and self-expression.
The results confirmed H4 and H5. There are significant and positive influences of
psychological mechanisms (pleasure and attitude) on approach behaviour.
However H6 is rejected because arousal has no significant impact on approach–
avoidance behaviour.
Implication This study entailed research implications, enlarged the S-O-R method application in
new contexts as technology product and showed the relevant technology attributes.
The paper showed also strong implication for marketers and product developers
showing fundamental characteristics to be followed. For example consumers consider
technology products as a mean by which they can build their social network and
express their own identity.
However there were some limitations impeding the generalizability of the results:
survey respondents were mainly study college-age students and the items examined
were technology products in general, not differentiating among product types.

Author Deblina Saha Vashishta and Dr.B.Balaji

Title Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Marketing Persuasion and Customer Relations
Keywords Customer Privacy; Customer Relations; Consumer Persuasion Models; Social
Cognitive Neuroscience.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives The research aim is deepen the comprehension about:
A. How to assess the impact of standard persuasion tools on privacy and
consumer relationship
B. The effect of Neuromarketing persuasion tools on privacy and consumer
relationship
C. The influence of customer privacy on consumer relationship
Framework The paper is composed by the following sections and contents.
Introduction: Neuroscience allows marketers to discover potential customers and to
develop an effective strategy to impress the customer and lead him/her to the
purchase, recall the brand and build a long-term relationship;
Literature Review: Social Cognitive Neuroscience is a new discipline of marketing
persuasion. Some marketing persuasion models are Traditional Consumer
Persuasion Model, Revealed Preferences Consumer Persuasion Model, Collective
Neuromarketing Persuasion Model, Individual Neuromarketing Persuasion Model,
Persuasion Models and Ethics;
Research Objectives (from H1 to H9);
Research Methodology;
Data analysis: Results of the Analysis and Hypotheses Testing;
Conclusion and Discussion.
Methodology The research was directed in some Indian cities (Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru).
During May, June and July 2012, 200 answers were gathered in person and online.

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 The survey was built basing on the literature of the traditional and Neuromarketing
customer persuasion elements. People were asked to rate the instrument with a
Likert Scale.
Results Every result is summed up in a table following the Path Analysis and Hypothesis
testing.
Implication Neuromarketing can help to discover costumers’ preferences and allow to use
marketing persuasion as a strong tool.

Author William Gilmore,
 S. Altan Erdem

Title The Future Of Online Internet Marketing: A Solution To Behavioural Marketing
Using Biometrics
Keywords -
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives The purpose of the paper is to analyse a new method of doing internet-related
marketing.
Framework The biometric approach is a new way to gather information concerning tastes and
preferences from public consumers and move toward a more personalised approach
even less frustrating for the customer. The paper is composed by four main parts:
an overview of the current approach of gathering data (1), an analysis of biometrics
potentiality to gather information (2), a review of current use of biometric
technology (3) and the state of biometric technology (4).
In section one there is a description of use and limits of cookies, usernames
password, smart card, tokens, credit cards and digital certificates. In the following
part all the advantages of biometric marketing approach (in particular of fingerprint
reader devices) are described: it is more secure, it cannot be lost or stolen, and it’s
difficult and very costly to forge. The third section shows the kind of market where
biometric is likely to be used (i.e. financial institution sector, government).
Finally, the fourth part outlines the steps forth made to improve the effectiveness of
fingerprint reader devices.
Methodology -
Results The potentiality of biometric approach is huge but the technology and its use is at
early stage of the development so big efforts are needed to exploit this opportunity
and provide a further progress.
Implication The most important implication is the need of exploiting the biometric approach to
do internet marketing, since it is more efficient and effective for both internet users
and service providers.

Author Christopher White, Yi-Ting Yu

Title Satisfaction emotions and consumer behavioural intentions
Keywords Customer satisfaction; Behaviour; Surveys; Statistical analysis.
Category Emotions
Type Experimental
Objectives The objectives are defining a satisfaction emotions framework and investigating
customer’s attitudes after satisfaction emotions. There are two research questions:
1. RQ1 questions if the inclusion of emotions as regret and disappointment
confirms the two dimensional satisfaction framework;
2. RQ2 questions if there is a consumer complaining behaviour linked to
these new emotions (regret and disappointment).
Framework The paper starts tracing a literature review about consumer satisfaction and
consumer behavioural intention (and satisfaction emotions).
Customer satisfaction was firstly distinguished from perceived service quality and
product value. Other studies defined satisfaction as comparison between

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 expectation and actual experience and showed cognitive and affective processes
included in satisfaction judgment act. Some scales of measurement have been
developed and the main point, for the study carried in this paper, is a necessary
third dimension to define satisfaction in addition to positive and negative
dimension. About consumer behavioural overview the starting step is the
distinction between behavioural (market share, price elasticity, switch process) and
attitudinal (loyalty, repurchase, brand preference) approach. As regards the second
approach, it’s clear that there is a link between satisfaction emotions and
customers’ actions however the knowledge is not sufficient to develop a larger
defined framework. RQ1 and RQ2 are proposed and the methodology explained.
The paper concludes with the results and a discussion about RQ1 and RQ2.
Considering RQ1:
• Positive emotions appear unique and distinct from other emotions but
there is not the same result about the negative emotions as anger loaded with
disappointment, to form a third component distinct from the other negative
emotions. Anger and disappointment are named bi-directional because a person can
be angry or disappointed with himself or with someone else;
• There is a stronger negative relationship between regret and positive
WOM.
Considering rq2?
Methodology The methodology applied is a quantitative research study. A questionnaire was
submitted and the seven-point Liljander and Stanvik emotions scale was adopted,
as it proved to be reliable in the prediction of customer satisfaction.
The data analysis was made measuring Cronbach’s coefficient alpha.
The sample consisted of 347 students from 35 different countries (60% female)
with an average age of 23.
Results The first result is that satisfaction emotions are to be considered as made up of
three dimensions: positive, negative and bi-directional emotions.
A new scale was elaborated:
• Positive Emotions: hope, positive surprise, happiness;
• Negative Emotions: guilt, depression, humiliation;
• Bi-directional Emotions: anger, disappointment.
The second finding is that there is a statistically not-negligible correspondence
between the bi-dimensional part and the consumer-complaining attitude.
Implication Emotions can be a useful segmentation tool. Customers feeling positive emotions
are willing to pay more, generating a positive word of mouth and they will not be
likely to switch brand or product. This finding challenges companies to always
discover new ways to generate positive emotions.

Author Laura Chamberlain and Amanda J. Broderick

Title The application of physiological observation methods to emotion research
Keywords Physiological psychology; Consumer behaviour; Research methods.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives The objective is to inspect customers’ feelings and understand what kind of
measurements can be used for the comprehension of their emotive experience.
The paper provides an evaluation of four self-report measures and three observation
methods. Even if the former imply simplicity in the implementation, the latter can
complement the information gathered and go beyond the lack of correspondence
between verbal reports and behaviour.
Framework The starting point is the desire to provide a conceptualisation of emotions in
customers’ behaviour. Emotions are not moods, not affects: they are unique
experiential states. They are brief and discrete entities, expressed physically and
able to imply specific actions. There are countless classifications of emotions: the

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 eight primary emotions of Plutchik, the ten fundamental emotions of Izard, the
distinction between arousal and valence of Barrett, Shapiro and some others.
There are essentially two different approaches to measures emotions:
1. Self-report approach
2. Observation-based approach
Regarding the first approach the four methods of measurement are: analysed
standardised emotional profile (SEP) (Holbrook and Batra, 1987), feelings toward
ads (Edell and Burke, 1987), consumption emotions set (Richins, 1997) and
pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) dimensions of emotions (Mehrabian and
Russell, 1974).
Each scale is powerful in the context for which it was developed, for instance the
PAD scale examines effectively the emotional reactions to environmental stimuli
(store, spaces). However in these scales some emotions are not taken into account,
some others are confused and numerous limitations are found in their application.
EDA, pupil dilatation, EEG measures are only three of the observation based
instruments, they can investigate brand recall, attention and emotional responses;
they can discover more about memory and information processing.
Methodology -
Results The information needed to develop a well-structured market action cannot be
gathered only through self-report approach, marketing need observation based
approaches to discover the unconscious world of customers.
Implication Considering the continuous evolution of technology customers can be always more
be discovered and their attitudes investigated. In particular, it would be important to
validate emotions measurements used in marketing contexts.

Author Vlasceanu Sebastian


Title Neuromarketing and evaluation of cognitive and emotional responses of consumers
to marketing stimuli
Keywords Neuromarketing; Neuroimaging; Neuromarketing tools; Cognition; Emotion.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Theoretical
Objectives The paper aims at giving an overview about the existing Neuromarketing tools.
Framework The article explores the literature regarding Neuromarketing tools, methods and
specific techniques.
In the introduction, Neuromarketing is defined as a discipline that can improve
knowledge about customers and their behaviours toward marketing stimuli.
In the second section some Neuromarketing techniques (EEG, fMRI, MEG, PET,
TMS) are analysed and compared in all their features.
Methodology -
Results New indicators such as emotional engagement, memory retention, purchase
intention, novelty, awareness and attention can be measured.
Implication The paper states that decisions are based on emotions. So with the raise of
Neuromarketing a huge space has opened to investigate brain waves, emotions and
to exploit customers’ feelings through the right stimuli. In particular
Neuromarketing can help the understanding of unconscious and following decision
to purchase, providing a better comprehension of the consumers’ thoughts,
emotions, needs and motivation in relation to marketing products.

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Author Giovanni Vecchiato, Patrizia Cherubino, Anton Giulio Maglione et.al.
Title How to Measure Cerebra Correlates of Emotions in Marketing Relevant Tasks
Keywords EEG; Heart rate; Emotions; TV commercials; Neuromarketing.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives 1. Offering examples of time-varying variables referring to the assessment of
emotional valence, arousal and Approach-Withdrawal behaviours.
2. Recording electroencephalographic, galvanic skin response and hearth rate
in subjects while they are watching TV commercials.
Framework In the first paragraph a brief introduction is provided, explaining the importance of
emotions in decision making and the fact that Neuromarketing as a discipline is
taking a foothold in the last few years as regards marketing research, since it could
solve some drawbacks of standard techniques. Moreover the concepts of valence,
arousal and Approach-Withdrawal are explained. The first dimension distinguish
states of pleasure with states of displeasures, the second contrasts states of quiet
with state of surprise, finally Approach is the tendency to go closer to stimuli,
whereas Withdrawal is the tendency to avoid some stimuli.
After this, the two experiment methodologies are presented, along with their
results.
Methodology Exp.1: for this experiment subjects were 15, both male and female around 27 years
old. It consisted in watching a 30-min-long documentary in which there were three
advertisement pauses, everyone including two commercials. During the whole
video EEG, HR and GSR signals were collected, and volunteers were simply told
to pay attention to what they were observing. After that, an interview was
performed: first, subjects were asked to recall advertisement they had seen and to
tell plots they remembered; then, after presenting 10 pictures taken both from
commercials they had actually been shown and from other spots (distractors),
interviewers questioned volunteers to distinguish between the two categories; lastly
they were asked to rank the advertisements according to the joyfulness perceived
while watching
Exp.2: subjects were 24, half male and half female, divided into two subgroups
formed respectively by younger and older people. This time people watched a 20-
min-long documentary with two commercial breaks, after 5 min and 15 min from
the beginning: each one including seven advertisements of different length (30, 20
and 15 seconds). Here the focus was on a specific commercial by Air Action
Vigorsol consisting in a hilarious climax of unpleasant images.
Then, the procedure followed was exactly the same of Exp.1.
Results Exp.1: during the observation of pleasant TV commercials the cortical power
spectral density displays a dramatic intensification in the left frontal areas and the
cardiac activity intensifies significantly.
Exp.2: during the observation of a funny spot the Approach-Withdrawal indexes
can call the reactions of younger people from those of older ones. Moreover EEG
asymmetry, GSR and HR indexes are employed to design an internal state frame of
a subject.
Implication The technology applied to the investigation of cerebral and physiological activities
allows to overcome many problems related to the traditional marketing tools (e.g.
interviews, focus groups), used as a standard in the examination of the emotions
during, for example, an advertisement exposure.

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Author Clive Chandler, Rachel Cornes
Title Biometric Measurement of Human Emotions
Keywords -
Category Biometrics/ Emotion
Type Theoretical
Objectives The aim of the article is to provide a theoretical overview on the existing biometric
devices and techniques to measure emotions and identifying a methodology
whereby emotions could be measured during the usage of the Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) software.
Framework I. Introduction
As human memory and self reported emotions could be biased and not very
accurate, other methods are needed to define emotions.
II. Biometrics
Some of current biometric techniques are:
A. Finger Prints
B. Iris
C. Facial Recognition
D. Skin Conductivity (GSR)
E. Facial Thermography.
III. Biometric measurement of emotions
Biometric measurements suggest that when a person has an emotion, there is also a
physical reaction, which is taking place. There are different methods to measure
emotions and the following paragraphs are investigated:
A. Skin Conductivity (GSR)
B. Electromyography
C. Facial Expression Reading.
IV. Biometric emotional analysis system
Staffordshire University developed an innovative system allowing to measure
quantitatively the emotional responses of experiments participants. This was done
combining two different biometric techniques: the last face reading software and a
wireless GSR developed at MIT.
Methodology -
Results Nowadays many systems are available for measuring emotions quantitatively. In
particular, using technologically advanced solutions, such as HCI or the newest
Staffordshire University’s software can become a critical factor for success.
Implication -

Author Atilla Yücel, Ali Sırrı Yilmaz, Ahmed İhsan Simsek

Title Coffee Tasting Experiment From the Neuromarketing
Keywords Neuromarketing; EEG; Neuroimaging; Coffee tasting.
Category Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives The purpose of the study is to define consumer’s coffee purchasing preferences by
using EEG Technique.
Framework The paper is divided into four paragraphs as it follows.
1. First of all, a framework describing Neuromarketing and Neuroimaging as
disciplines is provided. It is explained how, when consumers make their purchasing
decisions, they follow both conscious and non-conscious processes.
2. Then “the sense of taste” implications are described. The brain gathers
data through 5 senses during the purchase decision process; afterwards it combines
such data with some other personal variables for example experiences, personality
and completes the purchasing decision process. However this sense may vary also
according to many factors such as culture, lifestyle and habits.
3. The coffee taste experiment is described.

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 4. Conclusions are drawn.
Methodology First of all, the initial questions are asked and the brand choice of volunteers is
defined. Then, they are requested to say the first five words that come to their mind
when he thought about coffee in ten seconds. Thus, each subject is linked to EEG
and they start tasting five different coffee brands in row (without knowing what
brand corresponds to each cup). Also the body language is taken into account and
compared with EEG outputs. Furthermore, people are asked to guess which cup of
coffee corresponds to which brand. The sample consists of 30 volunteers,
university attending students between 18-26 years old.
Results Almost everyone was unable to estimate his or her own favourite brand during the
first phase of coffee tasting. The results showed that the brand they like matched
with the brand they prefer to buy: they were relieved and their brain activity
showed a peak when they tasted the most loved coffee brand; while when they
tasted the coffee they don’t like they entered into stress condition. Lastly,
volunteers proved to be largely incapable of estimating the coffee brand when they
were asked to.
Implication It is possible to use EEG as a reliable instrument to discover which is the preferred
coffee variety while the subject tastes the product, through brain activity reading.

Author John T. Cacioppo, Richard E. Petty, Stephen L. Crities, Jr.

Title Attitude Change
Keywords -
Category Emotions
Type Theoretical
Objectives Starting from the definition of attitude change as modification of evaluative
perception of a stimulus …
Framework The paper is composed of seven sections, here simply numbered from I to VII and
divided in paragraphs. We just mention results or the contents.
Section I
A. From the origin to the first professional studies about attitude change.
B. Reiterated, unreinforced contacts to a new or unexperienced stimulus
result in positive attitude.
Section II
A. Attitude toward stimuli depends on the related contexts.
B. Effects of font, communication, receiver, modality and channel factors.
C. Attitude depends on previous experiences.
D. Different human motives impact on attitudes.
E. Person inferences about the cause of behaviour.
F. Attitude changes as mathematical function of variations in beliefs.
G. Attitude as consequence of thoughts, influences and beliefs auto
generated.
Section III
Attitude changes as result of person’s consideration and as result of cue in context.
Section IV
Elaboration like hood continuum exists when significant info is taken into account
from external and internal fonts and possibility to scrutinize them exists.
Section V
Study about resistance to persuasion: comparison between argument quality and
status of expertise.
Section VI
Objective versus biased information processing.
Section VII
Excessive exposures lead to reject.
Methodology -

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Results The paper presents studies, knowledge gathered and results achieved. All the
results are already mentioned in the paper summary (framework section).
Implication No real implication emerged from the paper; one relevant point can be considered
the power and the richness of knowledge reached and at the same time the need of
continuing researches.

Author Barbara Loken, Christopher Joiner, Joann Peck

Title Category attitude Measures: Exemplars as Inputs
Keywords -
Category Product
Type Experimental
Objectives The objective is to show the role of exemplars toward overall category attitude.
In detail the goals are:
• Validating an attitude-multi-exemplar index where attitudes toward
category are expressed through exemplars attitudes;
• Exploring factors that may affect the stability and consistency of the
proposed inputs (i.e., exemplar evaluations and typicality) and the resulting effects
on index consistency.
Framework Premising that consumers are more likely to perceive brand categories approaching
with single products, named exemplars, the relevance of exemplar has been
demonstrated.
The idea should be to create an index as multi-exemplar measure of attitude:
Studies 1, 2 and 3 are presented in term of procedure and measures, participants
and results. The findings, defined below, are shown.
The general discussion ends the paper and it is presented that the multi-exemplar
index executed quite well as a predictor of category attitude.
The result obtained is regardless of the type of category tested.
Methodology Presentation of three studies.
Results According to the premise and the overall study:
• The index should be based on more typical exemplars however one
composed by atypical product is just less (but not significantly) strongly related.
According to the hypotheses made to develop the tests the results are the following
ones:
• The multi-exemplar index is significantly related to global category
attitudes;
• The index is weighted by the exemplar’s perceived typicality;
• The relationship between the multi-exemplar index and global attitudes
increased when subjects initially elaborated on exemplars.
If in Study 1 high familiarity and high experience groups yielded stronger
relationships between the multi-exemplar index and category attitudes, in study 3
the relationship was less impressive.
Results from Study 3 replicate Studies 1 and 2 in supporting the findings.
Implication Theoretical and managerial implications are then discussed: the research is the first
demonstration that an index of exemplar evaluations weighted by exemplar
typicality allows to forecast attitudes toward a specific category.
This index is a suitable measurement of category attitudes. Since marketing
communication has the purpose of encouraging attitudes toward the category,
thanks to the usage of this index, marketers could be able to create commercials
capable of increasing consumers’ evaluations of a product, being well aware it will
upsurge the overall brand category approaches, as consumers are supposed to think
about a category in terms of its individual elements (exemplars).

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Author Jooyoung Kim and Jon D. Morris
Title The power of affective response and cognitive structure in product-trial attitude
formation
Keywords -
Category Product
Type Experimental
Objectives The objective of the research is to comprehend how a product trial impacts on
consumer’s attitude formation toward the product and its adoption, aiming at
understanding both individual affective and cognitive responses through the
manipulation of the conditions of product type and customer involvement.
Framework The starting points are:
1. If consumers have the chance to face a practical experience similar to
actual product usage before purchasing them, they can form accurate attitudes and
there is an effect on expectation and demand (Goering 1985);
2. Interaction of advertising and product trial affects the development of
product attitude (Kempf and Laczniak 2001);
3. Consumers create their attitudes from product trials.
The previous studies are incomplete: Kempf (1999) only examined effects
according to product types, hedonic or functional, without involvement
manipulation and so Batra and Stephens (1994) focused just on involvement
purchase situation. With Pham et al. studies (2001), these were useful studies, but
did not investigate completely the process.
Four hypotheses are defined as follow
Hp: For the evaluation of a … product in a … involvement
condition, the effect of affective responses on trial evaluations will be greater than
cognitive structures.
Where the product can be hedonic or functional and the involvement low or high
and the combination resulting are four.
The hypotheses want to test whereas affective responses are a stronger predictor
than cognitive structure according to the two variables.
The methodology was implemented as described below.
Measurement instruments were Perceived Diagnosticity, Affective Responses to
Product After Trial, Cognitive Structure About the Product After Trial, Overall
Product-Trial Attitude (Ap), Product Trial–Based Product Attitude (Ap ) and
Involvement Manipulation: Purchase-Decision Involvement (PDI).
Methodology Two pre-tests and one main experiment were directed.
Software products were used in this study, with detailed written guidelines on how
to run the software; the functional product was a grammar-checking program, and
the hedonic one was a computer game program.
• First pre-test determined the attributes that consumers would look for
when evaluating the product.
• Second pre-test was a manipulation pre-check of involvement.
• Experiment assigned participants to four experiment hypotheses: hedonic-
low involvement, hedonic-high involvement, functional-low involvement, and
functional-high involvement.
A self-directed trial of one of the two software products was given to all
participants. Later they answered a series of questions.
At first Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to analyse the pooled
data of all manipulation conditions; secondly, multiple regression analyses were
conducted to define roles and strengths of affective responses and cognitive
structure.
Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was performed to find overall relationships
among the constructs. Two-model approach enabled to compare the roles of
affective response and cognitive structure in At and Ap development.
1. The first model analysed all four variables:

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 Affective response
Cognitive structure
Product-trial attitude [At]
Product attitude [Ap])
It has three paths (affective response - product-trial attitude, cognitive structure -
product-trial attitude and product-trial attitude - product attitude), because At is
modelled as a direct consequence of affective response and cognitive structure.
Affective response dominantly influences product-trial attitude, and cognitive
structure has no significant influence on product-trial attitude.
2. The second model excluded At and tested affective response and cognitive
structure in the formation of product attitude (Ap) and showed two paths (affective
response - product attitude and cognitive structure - product attitude).
Results In general terms, the research has discovered that affective responses has a much
more solid impact on the formation of product-trial attitude.
As regards the four hypothesis:
• For the hedonic product in a low-involvement situation, the only
significant predictor of trial evaluation is “pleasure,” not the cognitive structure for
the product attributes;
• For functional product under a low-involvement situation both affective
responses and cognitive structure are relevant;
• For the hedonic product in a high-involvement situation, the only
significant predictors of trial evaluation are affective responses;
• The last hypothesis was not sustained since all the coefficients are not
significant. In fact, since functional products entails low involvement, this inversely
proves that affect and pleasure in particular, run the trial evaluation more than
cognitive processes.
The results made possible to relate the size/significance of each variable effect on
product and trial attitudes regressions. Generally, product attitude formation is
influenced by affective and cognitive responses. As regards both the low
involvement situations, the effect of both responses is quite balanced. Instead,
affective responses are the only variables really influencing the product attitude
under the condition named as HH (hedonic, high involvement).
Considering all results taken together, marketers should focus more on the affective
dimension when considering a product-trial sales promotion, rather than the
cognitive-related dimension. Furthermore, it is important to convey the right
equilibrium of affective and cognitive brand benefits in low-involvement
conditions, in order to ease the process of a positive product attitude. However,
under high involvement situations, affective benefits should be underlined more for
hedonic products, while cognitive benefits for functional ones.
Implication The manipulation of product and consumer variables makes researchers understand
more accurately the processing phenomenon. As a consequence, the managerial
implication is that this research shows that when creating marketing
communication messages, it is important to consider the role of affect in different
products and situations and the different roles of affection and cognition as well.

Author Giovanni Vecchiato, Jlenia Toppi, Laura Astolfi, Fabrizio De Vico Fallani, Febo
Cincotti, Donatella Mattia, Francesco Bez, Fabio Babiloni
Title Spectral EEG frontal asymmetries correlate with the experienced pleasantness of
TV commercial advertisements
Keywords Neuromarketing; EEG; Frontal asymmetry; Power spectral density; Pleasantness;
Emotion.
Category Biometrics
Type Experimental
Objectives The aim of the study is to investigate the modifications in the EEG frontal activity

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 while watching commercial videos. In particular, this article focuses on analysing
the frontal asymmetries in the scattering of the signals’ power spectra linked to the
satisfaction experienced during the clips.
Framework This research stems from the recent trend of using brain-imaging techniques to
correlate brain responses to commercial advertisements with the declared
purchasing attitude. It becomes more and more relevant nowadays to measure
quantitatively the emotional commitment of subjects while watching a commercial.
Two questions are asked before starting the research:
1. Are there any asymmetries during the observation of a pleasant and an
unpleasant commercial?
2. Is it possible to extract a variable that describes the degree of experienced
pleasantness of the subject?
Methodology The sample was formed by eleven volunteers (eight males and three females), all of
them undergraduate students with no neurological disorder and free from
medications.
They were asked to pay attention to a 30 min movie, which contained eighteen
commercial video-clips during three interruptions. After two hours, each volunteer
was asked to recall the advertisements he/she had seen and give them a score in
terms of pleasantness.
Results The growth of Power spectral density at left frontal site correlates negatively with
judgement of pleasantness. On the other hand, a de-synchronization of left alpha
frontal activity correlates with high pleasantness experienced. Lastly, there is an
increase of Power spectral density while watching unpleasant advertisements.
Implication Answering to the previously stated questions:
1. There is a frontal asymmetry stimulated by viewing a pleasant
commercial;
2. The spectral index identified succeeds in describing the pleasantness of the
commercial viewed.

Author Giovanni Vecchiato, Patrizia Cherubino, Anton Giulio Maglione, Wanzeng Kong,
Sanquing Hu, Daming Wei, Alfredo Colosimo, Fabio Babiloni
Title Comparison of cognitive and emotional cerebral variables in Eastern subjects
watching TV advertisements: a case study
Keywords EEG; Neuromarketing; Memorization; Attention; Emotion.
Category Biometric/ Neuromarketing
Type Experimental
Objectives The objective is to examine the variation of the Global Field Power of EEG during
the observation of TV commercials. Going more in details, the research looks at the
level of memorization, attention and emotion perceived by Eastern subjects while
viewing an Eastern and Western version of the same TV advertisement.
Framework This research derives from the recent trend of using brain-imaging techniques to
inspect brain responses to commercials. It became more and more relevant
nowadays to measure quantitatively how advertisements are processed in our brains
as regards in particular attitude and preferences formation.
Methodology The sample consisted of twenty undergraduate students of the Hangzhou Dianzi
University (China), half males and half females, healthy and with an average age of
22.95. The experiment consisted in watching a 10 min documentary, with an
advertising break containing six TV commercials (both Eastern and Western)
without any speech but only images and sounds.
Results Both Western and Eastern advertisements stimulated the same level of
memorization and attention for the sample population considered. So, there is no
difference among commercials as regards the cognitive sphere. However, for the
Eastern population considered, Eastern advertisements are perceived to be much
more pleasant with respect to Western ones (which were perceived as unpleasant).
Implication Eastern people react very differently as regards brain activity while watching

129
 Eastern or Western versions of commercials. Thus, the brain-imaging technique
could be really helpful for marketers, as they have to address different
advertisements according to the country in where it will be broadcasted. Cultural
influence is crucial when performing this process, so further experiments should be
conducted in order to better understand different and similarities of Eastern and
Western population throughout the fruition of TV advertisements.

Author Kevin E. Voss, Eric R. Spangenberg, and Bianca Grohmann

Title Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Sources of Consumer Attitude
Keywords -
Category Product
Type Experimental
Objectives The aim of this article is to validate a generalizable scale, which measures the
hedonic and utilitarian extents of consumer’s attitudes toward product categories
and different brands. Such scale (named as HED/UT) incorporates ten semantic
differential items: five linked to the hedonic and five to the utilitarian dimension.
This objective is reached through six studies whose goal is to study the reliability
and validity of the two subscales.
Framework The study stems from the need to seek a deeper knowledge about the consumers’
attitude formation. Also, starting from the definition about affective gratifications
and instrumental reasons by Batra and Ahtola (1990), the article assumes this two-
sided description of consumer’s attitude: the first dimension is hedonic and refers to
the feelings resulting from the usage of the product, while the second is utilitarian,
referring to the functions accomplished by the product.
Methodology Scale development:
1. Study 1: an initial item selection. Giving some initial definitions of
hedonic and utilitarian products, researchers asked participants to provide some
adjectives that are close to such definitions and also other adjectives completely
opposite to them;
2. Study 2: scale cutback and discriminant validity. The scale was reduced
according to the correlation among items, dropping some of them but being always
careful to keep the reliability level high. Moreover, the scale was re-examined with
a greater sample of 400 university students. Then, discriminant validity was tested,
with the result of discovering that the scale measures different information from the
affective and cognitive measures of product category involvement;
3. Studies 3,4,5. With studies 3 and 4 researchers proved the predictive
validity of the scale, while the last test demonstrated its usefulness in marketing
researches. This was made through various experiments that asked participants to
discuss about products focusing on their different perception as low or high in both
their utilitarian and hedonic dimensions. Study 5 underlined an important concern:
the incapacity of functional positioning statement to produce relevant differences
on the utilitarian dimension;
4. Study 6: nomological validity. The last experiment studied the attitude
toward a brand, fundamental in attitude change researches. In the end, authors
conceptualized hedonic and utilitarian constructs as variables of brand attitudes,
proposing the model reported in Figure 2.
Results Hedonic and utilitarian variables are two very different constructs of brand attitude
and the HED/UT scale successfully manages to quantify them.
Implication Numerous procedures happen in the product attitude formation process and in the
development of purchase intention. Both utilitarian and hedonic functions are
independent but important aspects of the attitude formation toward a brand.

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Author DeAnna S. Kempf
Title Attitude Formation from Product Trial: Distinct Roles of Cognition and Affect for
Hedonic and Functional Products
Keywords -
Category Product
Type Experimental
Objectives Observing the differences of affective and cognitive responses toward the trial of
two distinct kinds of products: functional and hedonic. Going deeper in details, the
affective responses are represented by pleasure and arousal, while the brand
cognitive responses considered are expectancy value from brand attributes, i.e. the
result of brand belief, belief confidence and attribute evaluation.
Framework Previous researches have shown to what extent product trial has an impact on the
creation of brand opinion and attitude. Moreover, more recent studies have focused
on the function of emotional responses to the brand evaluation course. So, this
research stems from the need of empirical analyses about the measurement of
emotions during the product trial and it performs this analysis in two ways:
investigating the role of both affective and cognitive responses and comparing them
across two different types of products.
In particular, two hypotheses are tested:
H1: The influence of emotional responses on trial evaluation is more significant for
hedonic product;
H2: The influence of cognitive structure on trial evaluation is more significant for
utilitarian product.
Methodology The sample was formed by 42 college students, who were asked to perform a pre-
test, in order to select which products to chose for the experiment, in a way to be
perceived distinctively functional and hedonic by the 42 participants. After picking
a grammar-check software and a computer game, subjects were randomly allocated
to one of the two experimental cells, one for each typology of product trial
(functional and hedonic). The experiment took place in a computer classroom and
the procedure was the following: volunteers were asked to have a short, self-
directed trial of the product they had been assigned to, also with the help of
instructions on how to use the software, and then they were asked some questions
about it.
Results Arousal proved to be perceived more intensely for the hedonic product, while it is
not a significant antecedent for functional products. In general, affective responses
are more significant for hedonic products. Brand cognitions, on the other hand,
were not significant antecedents for hedonic products, but they proved to be
significantly related to trial valuation for functional products.
Implication It is important to consider both cognitive structure and emotive reactions when
assessing the importance of a product trial. In particular, as regards hedonic
products, it is crucial to look at emotional reactions when considering the
evaluation of trial experience and brand attitude. Giving a more general
perspective, marketers could be able to foresee whether affective or cognitive
responses would affect the most product evaluation for consumers. Thus, it would
be possible to modify the product trial experience considering these aspects, in a
way to promote the most influential features for each product type.

Author Giovanni Vecchiato, Laura Astolfi, Fabrizio De Vico Fallani, Febo Cincotti,
Donatella Mattia, Serenella Salinari, Ramon Soranzo, Fabio Babiloni
Title Changes in brain activity during the observation of TV commercials by using EEG,
GSR and HR measurements
Keywords High resolution EEG; TV commercials; Autonomic signals.
Category Biometrics
Type Experimental

131
Objectives The aim is to measure brain activity and emotional engagement linking significant
variation of EEG, GSR, HR and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measurements to
recall and pleasantness of the stimuli presented, as resulted successively from the
subject’s verbal interview.
Framework Starting with the power of neuroscience and existing knowledge in consumer
research, the idea is to recreate a TV screen natural observation and monitor
observer to discover always more. In particular EEG, GSR and HR recordings are
correlated with pleasantness and memorization.
Methodology Simultaneous recording of EEG, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Heart Rate (HR)
during a thirty minutes long documentary observation with three advertising
breaks.
Statistical analysis: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and z-score.
Results The results are summarized as follows:
• The cortical activity during TV commercials observation remembered is
higher (than during the forgotten ones) and localized in the left frontal brain areas;
the cortical activity during TV commercials observation judged pleasant is higher
(than during the no-pleasant ones) (1);
• The HR and HRV activity during TV commercials observation
remembered or judged pleasant is higher (than during forgotten or unpleasant ones)
(2);
• No statistical differences between the level of the GSR values were
observed.
To simplify the TV commercials offered to the population examined have
augmented the HR values and the cerebral activity mostly in the theta band in the
left hemisphere when they will be remembered and refereed pleasant.
Implication The results seem reasonable considering the existing literature, however more
researches to validate the observations reported are required for the future.

Author Rajeev Batra, Olli T. Ahtola

Title Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Sources of Consumer Attitudes
Keywords Attitudes; Preferences; Measurement.
Category Product
Type Experiment
Objectives The paper has the aim to test the two dimensions (affective/ hedonic and
instrumental/utilitarian) of consumption behaviour and define scales to measure
this dimensionality.
Framework The paper starts with a theoretical review: consumer’s attitude has both hedonic
and utilitarian components. Empirical support from prior studies section says us
that several studies have been performed but no researches, in consumer research
literature, have been developed. To conclude literature review paragraph: in past
purchase behaviour has been measured on a single dimension, with a sematic
differential, SD, scale so there would the need of selection of measurement scales
for validation.
This paper reports three studies as an empirical research, and tries to develop scales
for the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions with a validation in terms of (a)
reliability, (b) convergent validity, (c) discriminant validity, and (d) nomological
validity.
• Study 1, with an exploratory research for four brand, shows that a two-
factor structure emerges in all cases (hedonic and utilitarian). A brand can score
high on utilitarian aspects or on the hedonic factors.
• Study 2 tests hedonic and utilitarian scales with independently-rated
hedonic or utilitarian brand attributes: a good is superior on utilitarian/hedonic
dimension where hedonic component is associated with sensory and the utilitarian
one is associated with more instrumental attributes.

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 • Study 3 tests contribution of components to overall attitudes.
Methodology -
Results Results are schematically summarized in the following points.
1. Attitudes have at least two distinct components (hedonic and utilitarian)
toward brands and behaviours;
2. In the studies developed models with hedonic and utilitarian components
achieved both convergent and discriminant validity and scales reached nomological
validity. Different SD items (useful/useless, valuable/worthless, beneficial/harmful
and wise/foolish items for utilitarian component and pleasant/unpleasant,
nice/awful, agreeable-disagreeable and happy/sad items for hedonic component)
can validly measure utilitarian and hedonic components.
Implication This study is a across category analysis that allows:
• To investigate if consumers evaluate particular different type of attributes;
• To shape appropriate promotional strategies;
• To better predict consumer behaviours;
Moreover the scale development needs to be continued, more work on the
relationship and ambiguity is necessary. Research is also required about other
attitude components (social or normative value), probably relevant for some
consumer products or behaviours and may not be completely seized in the scale
developed.

Author Saiyidi Mat Roni

Title Introduction to SPSS
Keywords -
Category Software
Type Methodological
Objectives The technical and methodological report is an introduction to the use of SPSS
software. There are files and screenshots of SPSS exercises presented as illustration
of the software implementation and use.
Framework Paragraph 1 starts with the preliminary data analysis: cleaning data from monotone,
missing values and outliers. After the normality check, reliability, validity (in the
two faces: content and construct validity) and the bias tests conclude this first
section;
Paragraph 2 deals with factor analysis;
Paragraph 3 defines with latent variable;
Paragraph 4 concerns with test of differences among groups with the distinction
between independent samples and paired one;
Paragraph 5 talks about tests of correlations: Pearson correlation and Regression;
Paragraph 6 concludes with non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-
Wallis).
Methodology -
Results No real results are exhibited: the six sections show, action by action, analyses
available. Each analysis is defined in the theory, in action to implement on the
software and on possible results and related meaning.
Implication No real implication is described as well but it is possible to say that the paper, as
practical guide, allows a simple use of the software.

133
Author Ken Kwong, Kay Wong
Title Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) Techniques Using
SmartPLS
Keywords -
Category Software
Type Methodological
Objectives The aim of the paper is to provide a technical note about SmartPLS a software for
Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).
Framework After a brief introduction about Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) as
multivariate data analysis method and its two submodels, inner and outer,
description, different approaches (CB-SEM, PLS-SEM, GSCA and others) are
defined. PLS-SEM approach, the main argument of the paper is then detailed with
practical instructions, examples and steps to follow.
After the software application installing process it is possible to prepare and file in
data to create a new project.
Once built inner and outer model and defined the model as formative or reflective,
it is possible to perform analyses and running the path modelling estimation.
The topics to discuss depend on the reflective or formative nature of the model. For
the two models the following tests have to be developed.
For reflective models For formative models
• Explanation of target endogenous variable variance (i)
• Inner model path coefficient sizes and significance (ii)
• Outer model loadings and significance (iii)
• Indicator reliability (iv) -
• Internal consistency reliability (v) -
• Convergent validity (vi)
• Discriminant validity (vii) -
- • Collinearity among indicators
• Checking Structural Path -
Significance in Bootstrapping
(viii)

In the paper examples are shown and all the analyses are implemented. Other
considerations and managerial implication related to examples conclude the paper.
Methodology -
Results No real results are reported but this technical note can be used by beginners as
quick start guide to the SmartPLS software.
Implication Frequently used, in marketing research, the application can test theoretically
supported linear and additive causal models.

Author Joe F. Hair, W.C. Black, Barry J. Babin, R.E Anderson

Title Multivariate Data Analysis
Keywords -
Category Analysis
Type Methodological
Objectives This book has the aim to provide students with the needed information to
comprehend and apply multivariate data analysis.
Framework The book shows how to interpret results of specific statistical techniques.
Methodology -
Results Reducing complex statistical research into fundamental concepts the result is an
overview to multivariate analysis for people not familiar with statistics.
Implication The risk is that invaluable data are commonly e obtained after statistical research:
managers have to perform a useful analysis applying the techniques.

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